The children and I went to Target yesterday afternoon. Now, in order to make this a bearable experience for everyone involved, I often employ an incentive (read: bribe) in the form of an icee as a reward for good behavior.
They kept their end of the bargain, so I kept mine. I paid for the icees and distributed the cups, and then we moved down the counter to icee dispensers. As we were paying, some kids came in and stood by the icee machines as they waited for their parents/guardians/responsible parties to buy their own icee cups.
It would have been one thing had these children merely been standing there waiting for their icee cups. No big deal. Not terrific manners, but not a big deal. However, these children - I think there were 3 or 4 of them between the ages of about 4 and 10 - apparently just couldn't wait another minute for the icee goodness and were using their fingers to swipe the drips off the end of the icee nozzles. Gross.
But even this wasn't good enough for them. They then proceeded to stick their nasty little fingers INSIDE the icee nozzles.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say something. I had no idea at that point if their responsible parties were around (I later figured out that they were behind me in line), but that wouldn't have stopped me. I was honestly too shocked and appalled at their behavior to actually form the words to tell them to stop.
So let this serve as fair warning. If I ever see anything like that again, rest assured that I won't suffer the same vocal paralysis. I will be making my objections known because seriously, that's just disgusting.
