As I approached my daughter’s school today there was a clutch of babysitters and nannies talking about the Hispanic icy lady who had just been arrested, put in handcuffs, her cart put in the back of the vehicle and taken away by the police. Some of the babysitter/nannies were wiping away tears as they talked about the injustice of it;
“Why they don’t just give her a ticket.”
“Maybe she don’t have a license. Why they don’t give her a warning!”
“She just trying to make a living!”
On the other side of the playground, the mothers who pick up their children after school at 3:00 in the afternoon hadn’t heard.
“What?!”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s not right. I’m going to check with the office.”
It’s shock.
It’s outrage.
But, it’s different.
I fear someone called. Maybe 311, maybe 911. Who knows. The PC mothers on the playground had been complaining about the icy lady with her unsanitary sugary wares on the sidewalk just outside the playground fence at 3 o’clock every day after school. But, they had complaints about how there was no garbage can to put the wet, sticky used Dixie cups from said icy treats as well. Our children begged and we acquiesced passing out dollar bills and waiting on line.
How is it that the Spanish speaking woman who sold the icy treats after school was taken away in handcuffs.
Why are the Island-born nannies and babysitters in tears.
Why didn’t the White Brooklyn Heights mothers even know it had happened?