The Temper Tantrum

   The little boy sitting in the shopping cart was screaming as he clutched a toy that he desperately wanted his Mother to get for him. Everybody in line was a bit discomfited, if not embarrassed, for the kid's Mother.

   Except for the woman standing directly in front of me. She made no pretense of covering up how annoyed she was by the tantrum the little boy was throwing. Turning to me, she said, "I could shut that brat up with three words. Stop. That. Now. And he would know that I meant there would be consequences if he didn't."

    The little boy's Mother looked forlornly at him, trying her best to stay in control, with a look about her that resounded in my memory - it was the look of a Mom who would have loved to buy her son a nice treat, but the family budget just couldn't be stretched to accommodate the purchase.

   I flinched inside looking at the two, simply because I was fairly certain that when I was a little boy out shopping with my Mom, hoping beyond hope that I would be the recipient of a toy I sorely desired, my Mom was also never in a position financially to indulge me.

   And also because I was pretty sure that I did exactly what the little boy sitting in the shopping cart just a few people ahead of me in the line was doing, screaming and crying in hopes his Mother would break down and buy him the toy just to get him to shut up.

   Didn't work for him, and didn't work for me, either.