Burger King: Have it your way....or run away crying...

Speaking of crap.......
The unintentional "topic" of the week made me recall and feel the need to tell why my family is banned from every Burger King playland in the tri-state area. Shortly after giving birth to my third child, the "wonder mom" in me decided to get the other two kids out for some fresh air...so we headed out on that December day to the local BK playland for lunch and pre-naptime activity. Now looking back, I question the intelligence of this idea mainly because if any of you have ever been to one of these indoor playgrounds (aka ecoli breeding grounds) this DOES NOT qualify as "fresh air".

In any case, in my post-partum state, I thought it would be fun for my 5 and 2.5 year olds. And it was. Until I was sitting there quietly enjoying my diet coke, sleeping bundle in the carseat and remainder of my preschoolers french fries when kids started shrieking and coming out of every orifice of the maze of tubes and slides. It was like kiddie Armageddon. And you know that feeling...that pit in your stomach that grows into this internal burning fear that you just KNOW that one of your offspring is responsible for the screaming, crying mayhem? So the tubes and slides have all but cleared out when I see my 5 year old slowly coming out of the maze of plastic climbing steps...and then I see it. The bare bottom of my two year old coming down backwards. OH SWEET JESUS! He is carrying his pants. He is not potty trained. I turn white. Nope, I turn gray. I have lost all feeling in my face, brain and I am sure my heart is going to explode. I briefly consider gathering up the baby and leaving the other two behind pretending that I don't know them. But my slow actions give them enough time to reach me thereby implicating me to the rest of the patrons that these heathens do in fact have a mother. "I pooped" announced the 2 year old. I felt like saying "No shit"...but that might not have had the humorous effect I was looking for. The 5 year old announced "He took his diaper off in the blue tube" pointing skyward. "At least he didn't take the slide," I said out loud, addressing the other moms. I thought a joke would break the tension. I thought wrong. At this point the BK manager has already descended upon me. The other mothers (who ratted me out...what ever happened to some good old fashioned sisterhood?) are hovering over their children as if to protect them from the Feces Family. "You're going to have to go get it" says the manager. So I follow the rules (not as if we haven't broken the #1 unwritten rule at this point) and take off my shoes and begin the lonely, treacherous climb into the plastic nightmare. I am a claustrophobic germaphobe. I have reached the gates of hell. My 5 year old offers to come with me. But I decline, mainly so he can make sure that his brother isn't stoned by the patrons whose afternoon we have clearly ruined. I found out that I can effectively crawl and hold my breath for 3 minutes. If you have never been in a mangled tunnel of plastic and rope ladders, DON'T. This is a breeding ground for communicable diseases not yet discovered by the CDC. And it smells like french fries and hot urine. I am sure that smell was there even before this incident. I quickly reach the "package", bundle it up and begin my retreat. Now the burning question...the alternating labyrinth of plastic "stairs" or the slide? I pocket what pride I have left and decide on the stairs, although the slide would be much easier. The slide in hindsight would have been the safer choice because after a very ungraceful negotiation of the stairs, I was almost certain that the BK manager that was watching the whole debaucle would need to call for the Jaws of Life to free me. The rest is sort of a blur. My 5 year old, in all of his advanced intelligence plainly stated "We're not staying are we?" I hear the manager announce to the rest of the customers that the playland would have to be closed for sanitizing and I quickly gathered my gear, and against my better judgment, my children too and got out of there as quickly as I could. As we left I could feel the evil stares boring a hole into my forehead, the unintelligible whispers...I think I even saw one mother pouring her purse-sized hand sanitizer over her toddler. This is when I learned that mothers shouldn't judge. I have good kids (who apparently don't like messy pants). So when I see you at the park squatting with your kid by the bushes because the PortOPotty is just too far away, or you turn the bottom of their shirt inside out to wipe their nose, because that it the best you can do at that time, just remember, I'm on your team. Because we've all been there a time or two. And shit happens.