Downstairs

Downstairs there are terrible people. We've been trying not to think about it for days, but it's overwhelming. Tonight their littlest child was screaming his head off, and I almost had my hand on the phone to call the police, but didn't. Maybe there was an innocent explanation.

First incident: After we go to the beach, and the pool, Ahno comes up to the condo first, to take a bath before the children get into the tubs, and to start lunch/dinner. There are three buildings that border the pool, in a U shape with the ocean at the end of it. All the units have a screened back porch on the pool side, and a front porch on the other side. The first floor condos have doors from their back porches down to the pool, but the second or third floor ones (we are on the second floor) don't, so you walk around to the other side to go up the stairs. OK.

So Ahno went around to go up the stairs and here are the four children from the unit downstairs, and they're out on the front porch or lounging around. One of them is peeing on the sidewalk. Ahno, ex-schoolteacher that she is, was moved to inquire why he was doing this. The children said they were not allowed inside the house. They were not allowed inside their condo, so they were outside, unaccompanied by an adult, and the adults were inside. There are four children outside, ages 4-10 and there are four adults inside, two parents and two grandparents of the children. When Ahno asked if they were locked out, or something, they said, with shame, "We're not allowed in." This little boy, probably four years old, was having to pee outside, and he was not doing it jauntily, he was doing it because he was forced. Because the parents didn't let them in the house. OK.

Second incident: Let me say that these are really lovely children and so very well dressed. I know enough about boutique children's clothing to know that these kids are wearing some money around here. Bows in the hair, perfect perfect. But who ever sees their mother and father? All the rest of us are out flopping around on the beach or dragging our kids around on floats in the pool -- where are the parents of these children? Yesterday afternoon we saw them outside on the ramp down to the beach. We are in the end unit, next to the ocean, so as we were sitting there sewing and knitting (Ahno and I) we watched them hanging around the ramp down to the beach, with no parents. No toys, no swimming suits, no parents, just dressed nicely and hanging around the ramp. FOR LIKE EVER. For, without exaggeration, an hour. By themselves, next to the OCEAN. I think they had been told to stay on the ramp until their parents arrived. To their credit, they did not go in the water, but they did come off the ramp, and they talked to some other families walking by on the beach, and... who knows what could have happened? Were their parents diligently watching them, from the windows below ours? Who leaves their children outside by themselves? In a strange place with large bodies of water around? These are SMALL children. Finally the adults came out, drinks in hand, with some sand toys. Nobody went in the water.

Third incident: Today we were both all agitated by it, and thinking that we should have confronted these jackasses immediately when we found they were shutting their children outside so they had to go to the bathroom in the bushes. When we were down at the pool, around 5pm, this family came out and the kids and the Dad got in the water. The mother sat down with a book, no swimming suit. The grandmother was there too. The grandmother I have never seen interact with any of the children. The grandfather I have never seen, but I know he is there because the grandmother told me he doesn't like Chinese food when they asked me for a restaurant recommendation. These are fancy people, always very coiffed.

The Dad played in the pool, alright, he was interacting with his children -- big claps for him. Nevermind one or the other or the other was always crying at any given point and that he was calling them "brats" and acting kind of juvenile and rude with them. At least he was playing. The mother called out corrections when she was forced to look up from her book, which looked like one of those Lifetime Movie books. Then the mother, grandmother, and two little ones went in, leaving the older ones with Dad. I was playing with Benny and Sadie and we were very involved in some game or other in which Benny was dragging me about, revelling in my buoyancy which made me unusually vulnerable to dragging, and Sadie was promising to "save me" and trying to drag me the other way, although she can't touch the bottom -- it was very engrossing and I didn't realize that the Dad had left the pool. Leaving the other two children with me.

If they had been out on their back porch watching, it would have been still bad, since the pool rules clearly say, no unsupervised children, and anyway who needs a pool rule list to tell you not to leave your children in a pool with a deep end that's eight feet deep? When we were ready to leave the pool, I noticed these two kids, and the only other people down there at the pool were an old couple sitting there in hats reading the paper. I said to the kids, "Are your Mommy and Daddy coming back?" and they said very quietly, "No." The looks on these children's faces was... wrenching. They looked lost. They looked somehow apologetic for their situation. Totally aware of their situation. I was sooooo completely enraged.

I led them back to the porch and watched until they had knocked and were inside the condo, after explaining to them that it wasn't safe for them to swim without Mom and Dad, and I thought, what do I do now? I was so angry, I was... spitting. That cold, bitter little bitch and that ignorant buffoon of a father. What good would it do me to go and holler at them? No good. They are scum and unfit to be parents. She's an eye-roller and a sarcasm-slinger and he's rude and rough. Why do people like this have children? I wish now that we had called the police when they first shut those kids outside -- any person can make a report on behalf of any child. I'm sure if you're reading this you're thinking I'm overreacting, maybe there is an explanation, but seeing those miserable children drifting around with nothing to do, when they should have been having the time of their lives, playing in the water without a care because their mother and father were watching over them... it was awful to see. They are obedient children and did not stray where they weren't allowed. I just loathe those parents.

If you, blonde lady downstairs, with the perfect clothes and the sneer, by some bizarre twist of fate, are reading this and happen to recognize yourself, I hope this has educated you a bit as to how you are seen by normal people who love their children and want them to be safe.