Just another quiet night at the pool

Pregnant lady nearly got in a fistfight this evening. OK, maybe not quite. But I still had one of those moments that make me worry that the small fetus inside me will come out with Hulk-like random flashes of rage.

TheBoy was enjoying the neighborhood pool's water slide -- climb up the ladder, slide down, immediately demand to be put down so you can go slide again -- when suddenly a large man ran over, grabbed him by the leg and began yelling at him. The kid tripped on the concrete, and began wailing. I hustled over and demanded to know just what the hell dude thought he was doing.

"Your son was grabbing my son's legs on the ladder!"

He was in my face, a lot closer than I'm used to anyone reasonable getting in my happy little white-picket-fence world. I was, of course, not exactly rational at that point and yelled back that there was no reason, ever, for him to touch my kid. He yelled again. My worst side came out, and I told him -- pardon the French, kids -- to back the fuck off. I'm ashamed to say some finger pointing was involved.

Remarkably, however, he did back the fuck off. He took a step away from me, and I calmed down enough to tell him that if he had a problem with my kid, all he had to do was come tell me. I was the one catching him on the slide -- over and over and over again. Clearly, I have some kind of parental duty here. If he's done something wrong, I'm going to get all over his ass. That's my job.

Dude relaxed. It helped, I think, that at some point I shifted from sticking my finger in his face to putting a hand on his arm. A gentle hand. Not the, "I want to punch you in the face or squeeze your balls until you die for daring to even look at my child," hand that my animal brain wanted to be using. He apologized for grabbing TheBoy. I apologized for cursing at him. We retreated to far off corners of the pool. I managed not to weep.

Notice that I'm not mentioning that the guy was a fairly large Middle Eastern-looking man, because I'm not the kind of person who would register such a fact. Except I am that kind of person. And I'm really ashamed of pretty much the entire incident.

Not the best night at the pool. All that, and the ice cream machine was broken.