Day Careless

I am at the hotel pool with my children. Another family with three children joins us. The mother and I make small talk for a few minutes while the children play. Then, without warning, the other parents leave. Without their children. They’ve left their three kids at the pool, none of whom appear older than ten. My husband and I share a look, and we keep an eye on the kids for a few minutes, figuring the parents will be right back. 

Meanwhile, these kids are running around the pool, taking the lifesaving devices off the wall to play with, and trying to jump on top of my kids. I tell them repeatedly to stop, and they ignore me.

After about twenty minutes of this, I flag down a hotel maintenance worker and quietly inform him that those kids are unsupervised at the pool. He goes to get the hotel manager, who calls the parents in their room.

The mother comes back down and collects her children, but not after asking me why I didn’t personally come get her so she could deal with her children. I look at the hotel manager, who informs her that she has to watch her own kids, and I remind her that we don’t know each other, and she didn’t ask me to watch her kids, and therefore she could not assume that I would do so. 

She left with her kids in a huff.