I think it is pretty obvious when someone doesn’t like me.  I know what you are thinking… “Who couldn’t like you Toni??” Oh… wait… what? Sorry… I was thinking about maple syrup flavored forks to eat pancakes with too.

When someone is not vibing with me I usually take two approaches.  Strategy A is to over-try to make them like me and end up seeming quasi desperate.  Strategy B is to tap into what it is I think annoys them, and play-up that part of me so they get even more aggravated by my presence.  If you are not going to like me, then you are going to really not like me.

I know not everyone is going to like me on planet earth, because I sure don’t like everyone I meet… but still.  Where do you get off not liking me?  Maybe the best approach is to ignore the person so they think you are more desirable.  You know how people always want what they can’t have?  Like how right now I want your computer.

The other day I went to the park to socialize The Munch and let her go down the slide a few times.  On this day there were two main types of mom’s and neither of them were fans of mine.  Type 1 were the young hip moms wearing long dresses, sun glasses, and head scarves.  Type 2 were the moms wearing khaki shorts, Patagonia t-shirts, and crocks.  The cool mom’s didn’t seem to get how cool I am despite my cargo pants, and the preppy moms seemed to be offended by my over all attitude of letting Munch play on the big kid playground and not following proper protocol.

In short, I was not making any friends.

In the midst of all this I was trying to be a responsible parent and watch my child who was going down the big kid slide.  I had to catch her at the bottom so she didn’t shoot off the end and I had done this about 89 times at this point.  But after a while I wasn’t really paying attention anymore because I was consumed by the confusion of how these moms didn’t get how awesome I am.  Then The Munch slide down I went to catch her by her crotch and arm pit… my goal being to use the momentum of speed she had just acquired to soar her into the air and spin her around before I put her down… but instead I lost my grip and ended up throwing her.

Yeah.  That is right.  I threw my kid about 3 feet into the mulch were she landed on her face and cried.

But it made me laugh and laugh and laugh.  The more horrified people were, the more I inappropriately laughed.  But you know what?  We hugged it out and she did the slide 89 more times.

“Yeah this may be safer Mama… but let’s do the slide again!”