Sticky Carpets

My chosen prompt from Mama Kat is:

3.) Mommy play dates? What's your experience with mom dating?

When I became a newly single mother, everyone suggested that I "go out and meet people." I didn't know many people in the area. I work in the city, I'm not very social, yadda yadda. So, I went online to find some mother groups.

Problem #1: Play groups meet during the week, during the day, while I am working.

Problem #2: All Most of the mothers were stay at home moms with husbands who bring home lots and lots of money. They do play groups because they need something to fill their time with.

Problem #3: I have nothing in common with these women. I literally heard one woman complain that her diaper bag was too small. It was a Coach diaper bag. Seriously. Shut up about your $300 diaper bag being too small. I don't know care about it when I don't know how I'm gonna pay the electric bill.

So to solve #1, I decided to host a play date at my house on a Saturday morning. One of the two women that were coming invited Ryder and I over the night before for corned beef and cabbage. Who can say no to that?

I don't know this woman's real name. I have seriously been calling her Sticky Carpet Lady since the day I met her. Her carpet was really sticky. It was the first thing I noticed when I came in. Gross. She had this beautiful apartment but it was dirty. She had two kids and I only have one, so I tried not to judge.

She did not watch her children. At. All. One of the children was a couple of months old and the other was two years old. They were in a completely different room the whole time. Again, trying really hard not to judge. She gave her child a tomato. When the kid came back over with tomato on his face, SCL wiped it off and then wiped her hand on her pants. I was judging now.

She finished cooking and invited me to help myself. She kept the corned beef in the pot that it was cooked in and handed me one of those giant spoons and fork. The kind that you toss salad with. I could not for the life of me figure out how I was going to get a portion of this meal onto my plate. Some how I did something because I quickly ate and then quickly left.

The next day was the play date at moi's house. The other lady rocked. I really liked her. SCL, on the other hand sucked. SCL shows up with her two year old and a happy meal. My son doesn't eat happy meals, but I know some parents allow it. She offered it to our children and we politely declined. She then offered our one year olds dum dum pops. Umm... No. Choking hazard - have you heard of it?

Like the night before she did not watch her child. He terrorized my dog. My dog was so upset that she peed all over the place when they left. He was playing with my gas oven and SCL didn't even bother to check if the gas was off. I offered the women drinks. And being adults, I gave SCL a glass (not a tumbler) which she proceeded to give to her two year old who then ran around the house with it. I nearly had a heart attack.

Finally when play time was over, the boy didn't want to go. So she bribed him with root beer. I do not think that that boy needed any more sugar in his diet.

That was my first and last play date at my house. I found out later that to avoid such situations, a lot of the women tell all their friends about the play dates before they post them, so that when they do post them, it fills right up. Bitches.

I have seen SCL around town a few times since and I have literally hid from her. Like behind buildings. She called a few times and I had deleted her number so I picked up. Doh! I blew her off though.

I gave up on these mother's groups.