{"id":2411,"date":"2018-07-20T20:01:25","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T20:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/?p=2411"},"modified":"2018-07-20T20:01:25","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T20:01:25","slug":"meltdown-kilted-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/20\/meltdown-kilted-walk\/","title":{"rendered":"meltdown, kilted walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

After dinner the other evening, Jim asked if we could make a quick stop at Giant Eagle. \u00a0I pulled into the lot and waited in the car while he went in.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few moments later, with much shouting and slamming of doors, a mother and her young son got into the truck next to my car. The child was crying and inconsolable – and whatever happened in the store continued in the truck.<\/span><\/p>\n

She continued to shout at him, saying things like: \u201cYou can\u2019t blame everything on your ADD,\u201d and \u201cI can\u2019t even go grocery shopping because of you,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Neither of these things helped the kid settle down, obviously, and he continued to cry.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then it was, \u201cShut up, shut up, shut up!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Suddenly, there was loud rock music coming from the truck and I looked over, startled. \u00a0The woman was sitting in the front seat with the radio cranked up and her fingers in her ears – still trying to drown out the crying child.<\/span><\/p>\n

I sat in my car, trying to figure out what to do. \u00a0I\u2019m not really trained for this and I\u2019m not a parent – and I have no idea what\u2019s really going there. \u00a0Other than everyone involved being beyond their wits end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was there anything I could do that wouldn\u2019t make this worse – especially since the kid wasn\u2019t being physically hurt? \u00a0Could I intervene and de-escalate? Or would things get worse if she felt shamed?<\/span><\/p>\n

So, we sat there. \u00a0A crying child, an angry mother, and a conflicted bystander.<\/span><\/p>\n

And we were still there when Jim came back to my car and the father came back to the truck.<\/span><\/p>\n

I hoped that the father would be able to settle things down, but I wasn\u2019t really confident about that. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We drove off and my heart was kind of broken for all of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

————————–<\/span><\/p>\n

After a difficult week of work, I decided to take today off. \u00a0I was still up bright and early, though,\u00a0 and hopped into my kilt and boots to take myself for a hike. \u00a0I went to a nearby park that has a trail I like and started walking.<\/span><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t really escape the noise of cars from the nearby streets. \u00a0And though I tried to avoid other people that didn\u2019t really work either – though I did give the ones I saw a polite \u201cgood morning,\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There were a couple times that I was alone on the trail and the wind through the trees – and thankfully up my kilt – was enough to drown out the traffic. \u00a0At one such time, I also found a couple ripe blackberries that I ate.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was what I needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

I noticed this trip – more than usual – that I\u2019m not an \u201coff the beaten path\u201d kind of guy. \u00a0Not only did I stay on the trail, I stayed on the same trail I always take. Creature of habit, I guess.<\/span><\/p>\n

After my hike, I made a stop at giant eagle and got some peaches and a cold drink. \u00a0And when I got home, I sat on my porch and had my breakfast before going on with my day.<\/span><\/p>\n

I need to do this more often while I have the chance. \u00a0And maybe next time, I\u2019ll try a different path.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After dinner the other evening, Jim asked if we could make a quick stop at Giant Eagle. \u00a0I pulled into the lot and waited in the car while he went in. A few moments later, with much shouting and slamming of doors, a mother and her young son got into the truck next to my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2412,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2411\/revisions\/2412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}