Little Children

I took my daughter to a playground inside the local mall yesterday. She was out of school for Rosh Hashanah. I sat there, coffee in hand, watching her play. A woman came up to me and asked me, accusingly, if I “had a child here,” implying that I was just spectating the children play, basically accusing me of looking like a child molester. “Yes,” I said. “Why, do I look suspicious?” She replied, nervously, “Oh, I was just asking,” and walked quickly off. Made me feel like shit. Full disclosure: thirty seconds before she said that, I was thinking to myself, thankfully her and her irritating children were leaving. So maybe she picked up on that. And perhaps I shouldn’t have been wearing my Hustler Barely Legal t-shirt. But really—made me feel terrible for the rest of the day.