Let me start off by saying I work at a warehouse retailer that requires a membership to enter and a once-over of your receipt to leave (if you bought anything). Well guess what I do? I count people in and check receipts when they leave. It's a pretty cool job on paper except when you consider that you have to deal with almost every single person that enters or leaves the building.

I like working on the exit door because it gives me the opportunity to talk to some cool people, some pretty girls, and the time to draw a happy face for someone's kid to make the hassle of dealing with their kid asking for a bunch of stuff worth it. As long as the kid ends up happy, most of the time the parents appreciate it. This story has to do with children and bad parents.

We have to tuck our shirts in at work, and since the company I work for isn't one to completely do away with individuality, I get to wear my four-leaf clover belt buckle. Since my shirt is tucked in all the time, lots of people see it and compliment it. Kind of cool, but it gets a little old after a while (I need a new belt buckle). Well, one couple comes up with their kids, one, about 2, is sitting in the cart and the other, about 4 or 5, is walking alongside it with the receipt. Standard procedure for me is to draw a happy face if the kid hands it to me, which he did. Here's where shit got uncomfortable, as I was drawing the happy face, the kid made a comment about my belt buck and immediately started grabbing at it. The huge issue I have with this is that because of the way my pants are cut, the bottom of my belt buckle is about half an inch away from my penis. You could see why I was uncomfortable. What's worse is I moved to try and get him to stop and I looked up at his parents as they were just watching it happen and I gave them the, "what the fuck, do something" look. No effort to get their kid under control or stop him from potentially touching a grown man's penis. Without hesitation, I didn't even finish drawing the face and just handed the receipt to the kid so he'd have something in his hands that would keep him from grabbing around my business. And without words, they just left. Everyone that was in line after them made a comment and my coworkers that saw it happen were making jokes all day.

I'm not a parent, but I'll be damned if I'm not already a better parent then those people.