Photo by Samer FarhaWednesday was a gorgeous day, maybe the first fine day of spring in D.C. As a city we put chilly winter behind us and opened our arms to an overdue spring. Like many of you, I celebrated by hot-tailing it to a happy hour patio as quick as I could get out the door. Now, I do not begrudge any persons of any race, creed, or orientation who had the same idea; and I say this because what I am about to write may strike some of you as discriminatory. But the Wonderland Ballroom, my happy hour patio of choice, was overrun by undesirables: mothers. Mothers, with their children.
What I witnessed, I consider to be a form of child abuse — using children to abuse adults. Organized child abuse at that. Apparently the Wonderland Ballroom plays host to something called “Baby Happy Hour” every Wednesday, wherein moms are promised a smoke-free, noise-free, alcohol-enabled playpen upstairs. No DJs and no dancing, except insofar as kids are prone to break into spontaneous motion at any time. This still leaves non-kid me the downstairs for carousing and carrying on. Perfectly segregated.
