The Terrible-Twos And The Terrible Parents

(I work at the self-service checkout. A mother and her young son, probably around two years old, come and start scanning their items. The son is very energetic and he starts to climb up on the part of the machine that weighs the items. A messages pops up on the screen saying that there’s an unknown item in the bagging area.)

Me: “I’m so sorry, but this part of the machine is actually a scale, so when your son is climbing around on it, it gets all confused. You won’t be able to continue to scan until he’s down from there.”

(The mom doesn’t speak very good Danish and is obviously a little confused, but she grabs her son and puts him on the floor. He immediately runs out of the self-service area and stands at the front end of the store. The mother looks after him, but then continues her scanning, so I follow the boy to keep an eye on him. Usually, kids will run over to the bakery department to look at cakes, but not this boy. When he sees I’m following him, he starts to run, laughing, towards the store exit. Even though I’m not supposed to leave the self-service area, I decide to follow him, to see if he is actually going to leave the store. I doubt that he will, but our store is placed on a very busy street that has a lot of both bikes and cars. The boy runs out of the store, and I start running after him. I almost lose him out on the sidewalk, because there are people everywhere, but I manage to grab him right before he enters the busy bike lane. I pick him up, and he grins at me. I carry him back into the store and give him to his mother.)

Me: “You better hold on to him. I just got to him before he ran out onto the road.”

Mother: “Oh, okay.”

(She picked him up and held him for the rest of the transaction. I didn’t get a thank-you.)