angry mother

E. has a friend we'll call "Herbert." They were in the same second grade class together last year and Herbert invited E. over to his house a few times after school.

I met Herbert's mother a time or two during the year, but E.'s grandmother mostly dealt with the mother because these afterschool visits generally happened on her watch (she cares for my children afterschool until I get off work at 6pm).

Then last Spring, near the end of the school year, E. asked if he could invite Herbert over one Saturday. I said sure, but reminded him that we had a horse show that day, so suggested that Herbert could join us at the horse show.

E. loves going to horse shows, particularly at our barn, as this one was, because he can play in the creek, run around with other younger siblings of riders, eat hotdogs, and pet lots of cute ponies.

So I called Herbert's mother and invited Herbert to join us at the horse show for the day. She seemed very concerned about safety and supervision and whatnot and I reassured her. She said she would meet us at the show at 10 am.

So at 10 am, she shows up with BOTH her kids (Herbert and his 5 year old little brother, "Walter") and a pile of stuff, the likes of which I've never seen. Each little boy has a special chair and little folding table for their specially packed snacks and toys and lunches, etc. She brought a plastic ten gallon "frog aquarium" for her son to catch and contain any frogs they might happen upon. She assembles this mini campsite ringside and announces she is leaving BOTH her boys and will be back at 5pm. I had not intended to babysit this 5 year old I'd never met all day, and thought it quite odd that she was leaving him with me with no warning, but I said okay and she left.

She drives off in her Mercedes SUV or whatever it is and doesn't show back up until 6pm, at which time she rips into the little one, whom I've been babysitting all day, because he got "too dirty."

She then suggests to me that her boys return the next day for the second day of the horse show, but I gingerly explain that it really wouldn't be a good day for that for various reasons.

The next day, at about 10 am, I leave my kids at the horse show with good friends so I can run get some money at the ATM for show fees. When I get back 20 minutes later, I notice the minicamp assembled ringside. It turns out that not only did this woman bring her two children back to the horse show, she left them in my care without my knowledge or consent. She just dropped two kids - including a preschooler - off at this horse show with cars and a creek and horses and strangers and all kinds of potentially dangerous things, without informing any adult of this plan or that she was leaving.

I was flabbergasted, but E. was liking having Herbert to play with and plus, I was too busy to try to track down this woman's phone #. So Herbert and Walter stay with me all day and the woman - all perfectly manicured fingernails and blonde hair and plastic surgery - finally shows back up at about 5 pm and retrieves her children whom she fusses at again for having gotten "too dirty."

I probably should have said something, but I didn't. I made a mental note to avoid these people. Herbert drives me nuts, too. He's a prissy, whiny child.

Then during the last week of school, I get a call at work, at a time when I was extremely busy, and it's this woman. She informs me in a breathlessly angry voice that E. "insulted" Herbert at school that day and that Herbert has come home from second grade threatening to "kill himself" over E's slight. She says he's inconsolable and won't stop crying.

What did my son say, I ask?

Well, he apparently teased Herbert about having longer than average fingernails, which, this indignant mother explains to me, are that way because poor Herbert has a "sensory integration disorder" that means his nails must be specially filed down instead of cut because it bothers him so. She says she expects E. to call and apologize "immediately."

I offer my apology for E. having been rude or insensitive, but say that his apology call will have to wait until I get home from work because I am quite busy and he's at his grandmother's. She says that if E. doesn't call immediately, poor little Herbert will cry for the next three hours.

Well, of course I don't want this to happen, so I call E. at his grandmother's and explain he needs to call and apologize. He is reluctant, saying he's afraid that the mother will yell at him. I tell him that she has told me that Herbert is literally waiting by the phone, ready to take his phone call. He agrees.

Twenty minutes later, Henry calls and says E. tried to call and apologize but that the mother answered the phone and ripped into E. and told him he was "never welcome in their home again." E. is now mortified and upset. Henry is very angry on his little brother's behalf.

I am tempted to call and tell this nutso woman what I think of her, but am too busy at work that day, so I just make a mental note that we will NEVER have anything to do with this family again.

Halfway through the summer I start getting phonecalls at work from the woman asking if E. can come over for a "playdate." I make excuses, saying he's busy or at the beach with his father, etc, etc.

Finally, last week, she and Herbert track E. down at his grandmother's, where he is spending the day. E., being a forgiving sort, says he would like to go to Herbert's house. He calls me for permission. I attempt to dissuade him, reminding him that the mother can be "difficult," but he says he really, really wants to go and I relent. His grandmother takes him there for the day and picks him up at the end of the visit.

I then didn't see E. for several days because he was with his father, but when he came home yesterday, both he and Henry inform me that while E. was playing at Herbert's house last week, E. asked if Herbert could come play at OUR house sometime, and the mother-from-hell carefully and clearly explained to my 8-year-old son that, "In our family, we don't go to houses of people who are divorced and getting remarried. We don't believe in that."

ARRARRRRRRRRAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Poor E. asked why she would say something like that and all I could say was that she was a strange, unkind, unhappy person and that I feel sorry for poor Herbert and Walter.

I am absolutely livid and am attempting to calm down enough to decide how, exactly, I am going to tell this horrible person what a bitch she is when I call her today.