The Parenting Trap

The day on which Fernando rebuked the cultist seemed to be going fairly well. After all, he had salvaged his sanity and it had cost him relatively little. The day could only snowball to the better.

All momentum the joy-ball had gained was lost come around 6 PM.

A lady came into the store. She bore a toddler in her arms. After a short while, the toddler began to cry. Rather than try to soothe it or perhaps to remove it from the store because it might irk the other customers present (to say nothing of the Keeper of the Dominion), she did the super-smart and super-responsible thing: she let it run loose.

Oh, good.

Rather than quieting the child down, the new-found freedom goaded it to new and ever more annoying heights. It thought the areas under Fernando's rental racks were fine places to explore. They are, in truth, the opposite. Gazing beneath one of them is akin to visiting the murky jungles of Borneo. One second you're safe and secure and the next an arthropod the size of your forearm has injected its descendants beneath your epidermis while you've just contracted no fewer than three incredibly uncomfortable tropical diseases.

“Please get your child out from under there,” Fernando says once he hears the unmistakable ker-thump-tump-tump of a toddler bounding off the inside surfaces of the racks like it's the ball in an Arkanoid game.

“Oh, he's fine,” says Mother of the Year.

“I would prefer that he remain that way, actually. I'd rather not have my racks fall in on him.”

As if on cue, Satan chooses this moment to channel the ambient noise filling the deepest bowels of Hell through the young child's vocal tract. Fernando had never in all his years experienced an unearthly, ear-shattering wail. The other patrons in the store stopped what they were doing to stare in mixed awe and despair at the source of the noise, for they realized just as Fernando did that the foul denizens of the underworld had left the imprint of a goat's hoof on their awareness that would never, ever fade.

The newly formed gateway to Hell crawls out from under the rack in a shrieking, gibbering frenzy. Tears stream down its face and it paws frantically at the hair on its head as it spins in place, a gyrating puppet possessed by the lords of the deep. It gives another scream which portends nothing but eternal suffering and collapses. The mother rushes over, picks it up, and murmurs soothing words in its ear.

It seems the lad had trespassed in the domain of one of Fernando's Guardian Spiders. Even Fernando is careful in dealing with them.

Now that the fit has passed, awkward silence blooms. Fernando shifts in his chair and the other customers cautiously go back to perusing Fernando's wares. They find movies in suspiciously short order, pay, and leave. The transactions are carried out with a minimum of banter. This leaves Fernando alone with the mother and her offspring.

“You shouldn't allow kids down there,” she says to Fernando once the store is empty.

“I don't, actually.”

“You have it so they can get down there.”

Fernando looks up at the “THIS IS NOT A DAYCARE. KEEP YOUR CHILDREN UNDER CONTROL” sign that the woman cannot see from her current position. “Auto repair places have lifts and stuff that kids are able to get under, too.”

“And?”

“Well, if your kid runs out underneath one of them, is that the store's fault?”

“That's not what I'm saying.”

Fernando flicks his eyes back up to his sign. “But it's what I'm saying. If I had put a leash on your kid to keep him from going under those racks you would have rightfully raised holy hell because, last I checked, I can't decide to raise other people's kids on a whim. Besides, you're the one who told me he was fine under there.”

The woman's mouth gapes and she stares at Fernando. Then she closes it and says, “Okay, we're leaving.”

Fernando shrugs, inwardly relieved. “Have a nice evening.”

Parenting licenses. They need to happen.