Sweet, Sweet Parenting

(I come out from the back room of my store to find a woman lecturing a teenage boy for eating a candy he hadn’t paid for. She’s chewing his ear off, so as far as I’m concerned, the situation has already been handled. However, she comes up to the register to pay.)

Me: “You’re his mother?”

Woman: “Grandmother.”

Me: “Don’t worry about paying. Just tell him to call his mother and apologize.”

Woman: “Call his—?”

(She looks confused for a moment, and then narrows her eyes and nods sharply, turning to herd him out of the store.)

Woman: “She said we don’t have to pay if you call your mother and apologize, so call your mother!”

Boy: “Wait… What?”

Woman: “Call. Your. Mother. And. A. Po. Lo. Gize!”

(It’s a line I toss out every now and then when I catch kids filching, but I never really expect them to do it, so hearing his grandmother enforcing it was pretty satisfying.)