Beating the Naughty List

Naughty or Nice: Does It Even Matter?


I gained my fill of children who somehow avoided the naughty list because their parents still purchase undeserved gifts despite their questionable behavior. I often work near a mall entrance to my store, so I get a bird's eye view of all the interesting people that come and go.

Nothing like a screaming child to brighten my most undemanding days. The sheer number of screaming little birth control pills appears to be infinite, but for some reason the potential teen preggers always seem to be absent from the scenes of horror.


Sometimes a poor embarrassed parental figure will hurriedly rush their way through the store towards an exit, while others continue their shopping as if their child did nothing wrong. I've seen parents drag children whose feet somehow forgot to walk, or crying kids run haphazardly after their pissed off parents.


One such instance occurs all too often and is disturbing to say the least.


A mother and daughter seemingly happy after a jaunt of shopping. Nope, in fact on closer inspection the daughter stands a few steps away from her mom. The girl is decked out in a Hollister sweatshirt and Louis Vutton wallet dangles from her wrist.


She throws her hands wide and gives her mother a questioning look. The girls sports hundred-dollar boots, while her mother's twenty-dollar flats contradict her yoga pants and wool coat.


Her mother turns and looks at her, shakes her head, mumbles a quickly whispered response, and turns back to continue her journey pass my counter. The girl huffs, crosses her arms in anger, and her expensive boots lose value as she stomps after her mother.


Deciding to make their "disagreement" more public the young girl decides makes a declaration.


"Why are you being such a bitch?" she yells at her mother's back with myself and many other passers-by in attendance to her speech. I stare on in rapt attention as I usually do towards all potential customers in the store who may need my assistance, and in this instance my curiosity towards the mother was intent.


"What did you just say?" the mother turned slowly, a slight red hue now shading her cheeks, and her eyes huge with shock at her daughter's behavior. The daughter makes her way closer to her mother and the mother grabs her arm, while attempting to decrease the publicity of her words.


They walk on in a slight huddle, and I lose any chance of quenching my curiosity. An hour later I see the mother and daughter laughing as they pass my counter, but now the girl's hands are filled with bags heralding the emblems of popular teen consumerism.

Another naughty list contender beats Santa to the book and removes her name from the list.


I cannot fathom how parents have lost all control over their children. I witnessed a little girl, possibly ten, tell her grandmother to shut the hell up. That same little girl told her grandmother that she'd better buy the shirt or else.


The grandmother purchased the shirt and the granddaughter snatched the bag. I would have left the shirt and walked away, but scarily enough I thought the child would do harm to her grandmother if she didn't purchase the shirt.


So beyond the disrespectful teenager, the threatening granddaughter, and the screaming birth control pill you really have to wonder if the naughty list even exists anymore. I'd say that nowadays only a nice list exists because it's a whole lot smaller and manageable than the naughty list.