Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Restroom Nightmare

Before I headed to an empty stall, I scurried over to the public restroom’s mirror to fix myself up when a woman with her son came in. The woman, a brassy blonde probably in her late thirties, was dressed in brown and embellished with loud, gaudy gold jewelry. Her son, a chubby twelve-year-old, was rather old to be hauled into the women’s restroom with his mother. “He cannot come in here madam,” the obese Egyptian cleaning lady called out before taking another puff from her cigarette. The mother ignored her and dragged her silent son into the stall next to mine.


“Thiba7tni enta! Kil mara lazim ana awatheek! Tara kobart 3ala hal sowalif! Yala saw caca! You’re such a nuisance! You’re too old to have me cleaning your behind every time you go the bathroom! Sit down and make number two!” I quietly went about in the stall adjacent to theirs while the mother’s voice shook the walls. She spoke Kuwaiti but there was something about her accent that was a little bit off. “Mafini caca…I don’t want to make number two,” her son whimpered in fear. “Khala9! Ma agdar! KHALA9! That’s it! I CAN’T!” I heard a couple of punches and thuds and soon afterwards, the son started to cry in a rather girlish way. “El 9aber ya madam, el 9aber! Have patience madam!”

I heard their door opening and the son running to one side of the restroom while the mother remained in the stall. I walked out only to see the son sobbing on the shoulder of the elderly Indian cleaning lady perched up on an empty red bucket turned upside down.

The mother finally stepped out in a huff and snapped at her son to follow her, “Ta3al! Come here!” He miserably shuffled behind his mother between sniffles.

I was washing my hands while trying to absorb the crime that just happened. I sighed and frowned at the child’s blackened future since his mother’s treatment will probably have an extremely negative impact on his life forever. I turned around and faced the two cleaning ladies who looked as distraught and disturbed as I was. “What a loss” I thought, “What a shame.”


MP3's...
Miles Davis - It Never Entered My Mind
Ella Fitzgerald - But Not For Me
Dinah Washington - Since I Fell For You
Miles Davis & Ella Fitzgerald - Prelude to a Kiss
Miles Davis - I Fall in Love Too Easily
Duke Ellington & John Coltrane - The Feeling of Jazz
Ray Charles & Ella Fitzgerald - Baby, It's Cold Outside
Miles Daviz - Cool Jazz
Dinah Washington & Brooke Benton - A Rockin' Good Way
Duke Ellington - I'm Just a Lucky So and So
Billie Holiday - As Time Goes By
Ray Charles - You Don't Know Me one of my favorites...

at 9:32 PM

18 Comments

  1. Blogger EniGma posted at 1:29 AM  
    i swear some people don't deserve children...
  2. Blogger eshda3wa posted at 1:31 AM  
    oh my god

    galbe 3awarny 3ala the kid

    allah y3eena
  3. Blogger Delicately Realistic posted at 4:51 AM  
    ;S

    some ppl dont deserve the blessing of children
  4. Blogger Organic Kuwait posted at 8:20 AM  
    speechless..

    i really really dont know where to start...

    ...
  5. Blogger Jewaira posted at 10:51 AM  
    I wonder when we will have a real child protection society in Kuwait to protect kids from their own parents.

    What a distressing account
  6. Blogger K.thekuwaiti posted at 12:01 PM  
    I would have b-slapped the mom, the child and the cleaning lady with a Samuel L. Jackson face (the one from Pulp Fiction).

    In all honesty .. the kid is going to grow up hating his mom and then ditch her in a old persons home; karma's a bitch.
  7. Blogger Khaos posted at 2:40 PM  
    I'm not one to condone spanking children and I'm sure that she could have handled the situation way better, but I don't think that we should crucify her so fast.

    It's bad enough to have to a-wipe your 12-year old son is a public toilet, but to find out that his royal tush had a change of plans and that all of that humiliation is for nothing!? That can make some people snap. Who knows how many times she had to go through this embarrassing farce, or what kind of ordeal she's going through in her life? Her behavior may not be excusable, but it's, at least, understandable.

    Or maybe not! I wasn't there and I can't really say. But still, I don't think that we should judge people so lightly.
  8. Blogger Joud posted at 3:06 PM  
    how unsettling

    she had kids way before she was ready
  9. Blogger Hazolat posted at 7:38 AM  
    I wish I hadn't read this post, it made me heart ache so bad ..

    Hal Marah Kafra

    KAFRAH!
  10. Blogger Erzulie posted at 1:20 PM  
    enigma: Some people shouldn't have children, period.

    eshda3wa: Ee wallah allah e3een waladha...

    dr: Yup...

    ony: I was speechless when it happened. I was thinking, "Wait, am I actually witnessing this?" and "What's going to happen afterwards?" This happened in public so just imagine what she does to him at home.

    jewaira: Yeah, I know. The sad thing is that many people think that what the mother did (although I hate to call her "mother" because she doesn't deserve that title at all) was simply good discipline.

    K: I would only have b-slapped the mother, not the cleaning lady nor the child. Although the cleaning lady had no say, she still spoke out against the injustice. And the child was born into this horrid situation; I wouldn't put the blame on him. He will grow up to be a misogynist, if not worse.

    khaos: No, I don't think that we judged this atrocious creature fast enough actually. Training children to go potty is a parent's obligation; the mother didn't do her job by teaching her child how to do so, that's why she ended up washing his bottom to this day. I understand when parents pat their children's (toddlers mostly) hand lightly after they go through, for example's sake, that off-bounds drawer, but to publicly abuse and humiliate a grown child? That is a complete and utter no-no. May9eer it'thil aw it'heen il yahil (or anyone else for that matter) whether it's a one-on-one situation or in public. That's not how one learns best, at ALL. And judging from what I heard, she was punching his head and/or pinching him because I didn't hear any skin-to-skin (think back, face, etc) slapping/beating going on.

    joud: Well, I think she's in her late 30's. She's ready to have children but I don't think she will ever be ready to raise them properly. I wonder what kind of upbringing she had to come out this way.

    hazolat: Well, let's not drag religion into this but she's certainly not a good Muslim if that is her religion.
  11. Blogger Spicy Pepper posted at 6:00 PM  
    Poor kid! Erzulie, im still waiting for your input on the second episode! hope you like it :)
  12. Blogger K.thekuwaiti posted at 8:28 PM  
    You slap the mother to teach her a lesson... you slap the others so she knows your not messing around .. then you slap the mother again to make sure the first slap isn't forgotten.
  13. Blogger Navy Girl posted at 3:17 AM  
    This is wrong .. whats wrong with people !! how can anyone hit their own child !! they don’t really deserve kids ..
  14. Blogger Erzulie posted at 3:59 AM  
    spicy: Sure did :)

    K: Uhuh, all right! :P

    navygirl: Messed up people mess up other people.
  15. Anonymous Anonymous posted at 9:34 AM  
    This kid will grow up having little confidence in himself ...

    So sad but I'll put the blame on his dad too ... how can he let his wife abuse his kid in that manner without saying a word to her?
  16. Anonymous Anonymous posted at 9:50 AM  
    unless she's divorced, her ex-husband got re-married and she's raising that kid all on her own

    even then I'll still blame him for leaving his kid with such an insane woman
  17. Blogger Traveleer posted at 1:49 PM  
    khoas
    I don't think Erzulie and others were talking about the spanking or snapping part.

    The idea of a mother taking her 12! yes 12 year old boy to the toilet and then tryin to wash him is very wrong. Kids usually do that on their on starting at the age of 5 ..more or less.
  18. Blogger Erzulie posted at 4:53 PM  
    pearls: The probability of the child to grow up to be a sane and mentally stable adult is really low when judging by this mere situation. Parenting is a job done properly by two and not by one parent alone i.e. mother or father. However, I think that the father may:
    -not know how his wife treats their son or...
    -is actually O.K. with the treatment and might be more abusive to his son or...
    -does not have a say in anything.

    There are a lot of assumptions that one can come up with, whether it's about the parents' role or the child's future. Either way, I think that all these factors ought to be dismissed since the priority is the child's well-being and health.

    traveleer: Yup, but the mother is at wrong since children do not instinctively learn how to go potty; their parents teach them how and in this case, we know that the boy was not trained well by his guardians who are obligated to teach him the basics of, well, living! Poor kid...

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