I know I’m a neurotic mom. I try to hide it well. Sometimes I’m really good at that, other times not so much. Now, I’m not saying if I ran with every neurotic thought that runs screaming into my noggin that my monkeys would end up living in plastic bubbles. Even I will admit I’m not THAT bad. Besides, I couldn’t really fit those in my highest safety rating family vehicle.

The monkeys are now 6 and almost 5 and rather bright lil girls. I know they need the room to start exhibiting some independence and I’ve been working on that. I’m all about it at home and in controlled environments and had been really proud about branching out. Over the summer I began to allow them to go into public bathrooms on their own. Meaning, I stand right outside the main bathroom door and they go in together, do what they need to do and come out. Until this past Tuesday, I thought this was a great way for them to feel like big girls and still remain safe.

I think it will be a long time before I do that again.

It started with a text from my sister shortly after 6:00pm. She’d ventured to Hobby Lobby and was texting me pictures of all the Christmas stuff they had up. When my alert went off again, expected to see a giant fur-trimmed, bright pink leopard prin stocking. Instead I received franticness. One of those brief moments that occurs that makes you question humanity. Or am I making too much out of it?

Here are the details:

She walked into the clearly labelled ladies room. Straight ahead was the open door to the handicapped stall, so she went in. Standing in the stall was a man peeing. If it were me, I’d have probably gasped and started apologizing. She just quietly backed out (thinking “oh shit I walked in the mens room!”) and went to find a male employee to tell him about the incident.
Now, there are some understandable reasons this may occur. Say, if it were a bar or there was a mental/cognitive handicap of some sort. Unfortunately neither of these were true. In fact this man actually worked for Hobby Lobby in loss prevention. Not only that, it’s his moonlighting job so-to-speak. His real job? Local law enforcement.

So…

A sober, male law enforcement agent walks into a clearly labelled women’s bathroom in a very family-orientated craft store in which he actually works IN LOSS PREVENTION (read he needs to know that store inside and out) and proceeds to leave the door completely open while he whips it out to pee. My almost 5 and 6 year old know the difference between the mens and womens bathrooms. They also know to close and lock the door when they are in a stall.

His response when confronted by my sister and the male employee “I thought I heard someone walk in.” That’s it. No “omg, I’m so sorry, I have no idea how that happened.” No remorse. No apology.

There is nothing in this that tells me this was just an accident. And it beyond creeps me out. I know that if I had been there and the girls had to tinkle, I would have let them go in while I stood outside the door. They would have gone straight to that stall because they could both go in it together. And they would have seen a grown man with his penis in his hand. They would have screamed, I would have run in and that guy would have been knocked the truck out by me. Forget the junkpunch. I would have been in full on mama bear mode. It would not have been pretty.

Am I overreacting? Is the neurotic in me running amuck? Do you think this was just some accident?

HELP! 🙂