Mr. Klatch? Was that you?

I was just reading about the 61 year old jackass who slapped a two year old girl in the face at Walmart.

It was not his child. He was a complete stranger. She wouldn't stop crying. Supposedly he told her mother to shut her up or else he would. When she kept crying, he smacked her in the face, more than once. As expected, he was arrested and is facing felony charges.

My immediate reaction was that if it were my child, I would be facing some hefty charges myself. It would've taken a mob of cashiers to pull me off his sorry ass, and I can guarantee he would have been hurting.

All of a sudden, my junior high reading teacher popped in my head. Isn't it so crazy how the brain stores stuff from decades ago and then digs it up to make you stop and think years later?

Mr. Klatch, from what I remember (and it isn't much...it was over twenty years ago), was an odd little man. The mental image I have of him shows a short guy in a wrinkled gray suit, prematurely balding with a bad comb-over. He came across kind of cocky, a bit of a know-it-all attitude. The way he said things left you to wonder if he really had a sadistic mean streak in him, or if he said some things solely to be funny, clever, and impress the class. It was obvious he was not part of the popular crowd when he was in school.

Anyhow, I remember nothing more of him, or the class for that matter, except for two specific things I recall him saying:
After we took a test, he said he would grade our papers by throwing them up in the air in front of a fan that would blow them toward a wall where he had painted the letters A, B, C, and D. The section where your paper landed would be your grade. I think I remembered this all these years because once I hit college it appeared there were professors who actually did this...Dr. Armstrong, Sociology 101.
The other story he told was about babies at the grocery store. He said he loved to open a jar of hot peppers, dip his finger in, and then touch the mouth/lips of babies when their mothers weren't looking. The kids would scream, the moms couldn't figure out why, and he would be amused.

When I was thirteen and heard him say this, my reaction was very different from my reaction today. No harm, no foul...I thought back then. If he really did this to babies, which I sincerely doubted, he didn't really hurt them. They cried a bit and got over it. It was kinda funny in a way. It may burn for a few minutes, and aggravate their mothers, but it caused no permanent long term injury or harm. They would never remember it, and the moms would just think it was a simple crying fit.

Now, the thought of someone doing that to my little girl is so upsetting. Why would anyone take pleasure in making a baby cry? Sadistic bastard. Yeah, that's was he was. A mean, sick, demented little man. He deserves to rot in hell.

So, if that's now my view on the hot pepper juice prank, no wonder my gut reaction to today's news story was so intense. What he did was definitely wrong; he had no right to touch that child. He obviously has issues and needs some counseling...in addition to jail time, not in lieu of...and I hope he gets both.

At the same time though, the child was not really injured. Her face was a bit red they said, but he didn't break her jaw or anything like that. While I agree that it was assault, I also understand how the constant crying of a baby can bring out the worst in people. But, he could've simply walked away from the situation. The child won't remember the actual event; she will remember it solely through hearing her mother re-tell the story over the years. She will not be physically scarred. She will not be emotionally scarred. She will not be psychologically scarred. It was one isolated incidence, and it will not affect the overall outcome of her life.

So, thinking this through a bit, I guess if it were my child, peeling the guy like a grape would've been a bit harsh. It wouldn't have made the situation better, it wouldn't have reversed the event, and it would've only complicated the whole thing.

But, all that being said, my "mama bear" gut reaction may trump any rational thought if I am ever in that situation. I never understood it, or even knew it truly existed, before Punky came along.

When your child is in danger...any kind of danger...whether it be the possibility of falling down the stairs or getting hit by a car...some adrenaline switch gets flipped in a mama and all bets are off. She will protect that child to the best of her abilities and instict will rule her decisions. To exist in the real world of today, mothers need to learn to keep that instinct in check and abide by society's rules. I still think I may have jumped on the guy... I'm too new at this mama thing and my instincts are running rampant.

And I really have to wonder...Mr. Klatch? Was that you in the news? Highly unlikely...but the age would be about right...