You take care of your brats, I'll take care of mine.

I got in a fight at the pediatricians today. Big surprise, huh?
It's flu shot time, and while my kids are on fall break I thought I would take them to get theirs. Little did I know I would be walking into a freakin' mad house.
We walked in, and what I assumed to be a waiting room full of sick kids was actually the demon offspring of one sad woman. There were only two of them, boys both under five or six, plus the screaming baby that wailed its head off from the depths of its car seat.
"Let's set over here," I say to my kids, ushering them towards the well patient section. I shoot the lady a 'For the love of God' look before walking behind the partition. She doesn't see me because, ironically, she's got her face buried in a Parenting magazine. Of course.
Thankfully we are out of sight of the little trouble makers who, when last we saw them, were attempting to crawl through the receptionist's window while she was doing all she could to beat them off with tongue depressors. She finally succeeds, I guess, because I hear the window slam closed.
My kids, naturally attracted to all of the unsupervised carnage going on just beyond the flimsy little wall, are now pushing each other off the chairs and sticking their tongues out at one another. "Stop it," I say. "Just because other people are being rude, doesn't mean that we have to be, too." They stop. They know from experience that I am never so dangerous as when other people aren't minding their own children.
Just then one of the hell-spawn peaks over the partition. What the hell is he standing on, I wonder. That wall is at least six feet tall. He would have to be standing on top of his brother on top of the chair, which I don't doubt. I shake my head in shear wonderment. Does this woman have no idea what her kids are doing? Or does she simply not care? Perhaps she is hoping that they will kill themselves and save her the trouble.
Right at that moment the little bas-, I mean kid, coughs on my son's head. That does it. I am a bit of a fanatic about the germs. My son has asthma. And while it's not severe, a simple cold can escalate into something worse. And besides I don't want him to be infected with all the crazy.
So, I do it. I enter into somebody else's business. I walk around the partition. "Excuse me, ma'am?" She looks at me in surprise. "Could you please keep your kids on this side of the wall? I'm trying to keep my kids from getting sick."
"Por favor?" she asks. Shit. Now how am I going to sufficiently express my outrage? More importantly, how am I going to bitch her out so that she can understand and I don't come off as a racist? I involuntarily roll my eyes. Screw it.
"Keep them," I say pointing to her children, who by the way are now trying to dump the baby out of the car seat. "Over here." I point to the chairs, making a gesture that I hope she understands as 'tie those heathens up, if you have to!'
She gets it, all right. She stood up, and it was then that I realized that she was easily half a foot taller than me and built like a female wrestler. And not the respectable Olympic kind. We're talking WWE here. She gets this crazy look in her eye and walks toward me. She called me something that I am certain was a very rude name in Spanish.
I must have been right because her kids immediately hush, clearly recognizing a foul word when they hear it just like kids from all over the world.
"Lady, just make your kids mind, OK. The rest of us are tired of hearing it." The receptionist claps, then catches herself and merely smiles. The other mother might not have understood all my words, but she got the picture. She looks at her kids, now back to squirting the baby's bottle like a water gun. Then she looks at my kids (she can see over the partition). I am happy to note that they are absorbed in Nemo on the waiting room TV. They do not even take notice when Mom gets on her soapbox anymore. It happens a lot.
She gives me one more ugly look, then picks her children up (one in each arm) and places them forceably in chairs. They begin to pout, but do no more than kick at each others legs.
"Gracias," I try to say graciously. Thankfully my kids names were called shortly thereafter. The nurse gives me a smile of thanksgiving. Apparently these patients have been here before.
So that is the story of how my kids got extra suckers and stickers at the doctor's office and how I almost caused an international incident on 13th street, without even trying very hard. Funny the things that can happen in a waiting room.