Why Do That?

While shopping in a local drug store this afternoon I observed a young woman with 2 children; one was probably 3 years old, the other was an infant about 8 months old. The young woman held the hand of the older child and carried the baby on her hip.

The store has a couple of aisles of Halloween costumes, decorations and candy. The woman stopped at an extremely macabre looking skeleton hanging on an end cap. She turned the baby toward the skeleton and pushed a button on the thing. It came to life, moved and let out an awful sound.

The poor little baby jumped and began to cry, obviously frightened by the skeleton. The woman laughed and said, "Don't be such a baby!" She looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, stifled a laugh, and went on her way scolding the baby for crying.

I had all I could do to keep from shouting, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" That poor baby! Perhaps I don't have much of a sense of humor when it comes to frightening small children but I didn't find that to be funny at all. How about you?