Was just about to take Thursday’s first sip at the coffee shop when a severe weather event rolled in to my right.
“Tell your Dad what you want! We came here for breakfast!”
Enters, yelling.
I turned and saw a young mother standing in the archway that splits the coffee shop’s seating area from the bakery where you place your order.
I couldn’t see the child.
Only hear him.
Wailing.
In full froth.
Though decades removed from the child-meltdown days, I still fancy myself a bit of a connoisseur.
I try not to stare, but I can’t help myself.
It’s like rubbing a hand over old scars tied to humbling stories.
I’m drawn by empathy, not schadenfreude.
Mostly.
It’s the kind of thing that can only be appreciated at a distance.
The kid was producing these long, drawn-out whines — persistent and consistent — at impressive decibels.
Without optics, I put it at about a category 4 meltdown.
Likely not a microburst, based on context clues.
The store had just opened. They had just arrived.
And mom’s patience tank was already on empty. She wasn’t even feigning appeasement.
She was dead-ass yelling at her child from another room.
“Use your words!” she barked back towards him.
If I was a tornado hunter, I’da been buckling my seat belt and double checking I had back-up batteries for my camera.
That both of them had already completely abandoned any sense of their surroundings suggested that the meltdown had begun well before their arrival.
And also that the wailing child may have come by his gifts … honestly.
Regardless, it was clear the situation had been brewing for as long as Thursday’s dark roast of the day.
“We are never coming back here unless you stop!”
Ooh, I thought. Seemed a bit premature to play the “We’re never doing this again!” card.
Few chess moves left on the board after that one. Pretty much just the nuclear options.
A child in meltdown is among the most humbling things in the universe.
Second only to trying to get the goddamn wheels on a Pinewood Derby car to go straight, at least in my experience.
The harder you try, the worse you make it.
I mean, here was a mother — otherwise the most powerful being in all the universe — letting herself get drawn in to her child’s energy. She’d completely lost her footing in rationality.
Might as well have been yelling at the rain.
After her “Nevermore” threat, she executed an exquisite “I’m-done-with-it” 180 (9.8 from the judges), and took a seat by herself at a round table near the front of the room.
Signifying that this was now Dad’s problem.
Also known as “tappin’ in the B team.”
Poor motherf*cker, I thought.
Minute later Dad comes in carrying their order with their son trailing behind him … still wailing.
He promptly engaged “controlled burn” protocols.
Gently placed his wife’s order in front of her — like a zookeeper feeding an alligator — and then sat down at an adjacent table, giving Mom’s magma some space to cool while limbering up for his shot at quelling the hellion.
I’m bad at ages but I pegged the kid between three and four.
At the ripe age when one recognizes one’s agency and power to make themselves seen and heard in the world.
“Hang on to that kid,” I thought in my head.
“Hold my sippy cup,” he replied telepathically, as he refused Dad’s overture to join him and defiantly took a seat at one of the tables in the coffee shop’s window.
Where he immediately began kicking his legs as if he was on a swing, percussively thumping his heels against the window.
It was glorious.
Like watching Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa of meltdowns.
Took dad all of four thumps to stand up, walk over to the window and grab the child by the hand.
Exits, wailing.
They left the building for some air, and to give mom some visual separation, even if her peace was completely out of the question by this point.
A brick alley runs alongside the coffee shop. I think that’s where they went.
I could still hear the boy yelling from a distance.
Sounded like the coyotes that screech in the cemetery at night.
Meanwhile Mom silently nibbled at her muffin while scrolling her phone.
Boys were gone for a couple minutes, during which I patched together a backstory in my head.
I surmised the parents had planned a summer day off. Had thoughtfully put together a day of adventure — maybe a trip to the city — starting with a rare weekday breakfast outing at Mom’s favorite place.
They were likely on a schedule. Perhaps had to leave the house at a certain time, which didn’t align with the kid’s morning agenda. Probably wasn’t a long drive to the coffee shop, just enough for the child to find a cadence for his displeasure, whereupon he set his pace for distance and duration.
I finished my cortado and returned my cup to the counter, ordering one for the road.
Stepping outside, I saw Dad hoisting the child off the ground while standing next to an SUV with the back door open.
He wore the exasperated look of someone trying to figure out the geometry of how to fit a big Ikea box into the back seat’s un-rectilinear opening … if the box had legs and was simultaneously pushing in the opposite direction.
Mom was silently seething on the sidewalk, holding a paper bag with the vestiges of their breakfast that she’d likely toss in the garbage as soon as she got home.
They had reached the inevitable conclusion that sooner or later comes for all parents with best laid plans: time to cut losses and abort the mission.
AKA the nuclear option.
But then, I witnessed the most glorious thing.
In the midst of trying to stuff his uncooperative child into the backseat, Dad caught sight of the coffee shop’s sidewalk tables.
I actually saw the spark catch his eyes and wrinkle his forehead.
“Or,” he said to his wife, “We could just sit outside?”
This was everything to me.
Despite the fact that he was overmatched, outwitted, and soundly defeated by a three-year-old and a morning that could not have gone more to shit, there remained inside him a flickering spark that believed, “This is still salvageable.”
It wasn’t, but that was beside the point.
“Hang on to that Dad,” I thought in my head.
Made me appreciate just how quickly the days of the never-ending meltdowns … eventually do end.
I genuinely wanted to hug him.
But not enough to risk getting mule-kicked by the spawn of Satan he was trying to wedge into the car like an uncooperative Lagkapten ($79 from Ikea, ICYI).
The polite thing to do would have been for me to just put my head down and cross the street.
Instead, I waited patiently for the kid to take a breath.
And then I took Mom’s advice.
I used my words.
“Excuse me,” I said sheepishly.
All three turned to look at me.
“Um, I know the time is not now …” I began.
“But I promise you that there will come a time … when you will miss even this.
“That time is not now,” I quickly repeated. “But I promise you.”
Holding his tear-drenched kid by his armpits two feet off the ground, Dad threw his head back and laughed.
Mom, meanwhile, closed her eyes and allowed herself a self-effacing chuckle, the first slow step to remembering that she was, in fact, the most powerful being in the Universe.
Their smiles made all my scars tingle.
“God bless you guys,” I said, raising my to-go cup.
It’s the kind of thing that can only be truly appreciated at a distance.
Exits, remembering.
Letters for Maggie 