3 Year Olds Don't Need Supervising

I know I'm about a day late to this party, but part of the reason is because I was dealing with a confusing mixture of thought. Initially, I found this story ridiculously funny. A 3 year old kid somehow managed to climb into one of those claw grabber game machines where you put in your money, guide a claw over a stuffed animal you're sure it'll grab, hit the button, and wait for the claw to not hold on to a damn thing when it comes back up. But after a while, I was very confused and concerned.

This whole incident took place at a Godfather's Pizza joint in Austin, MN which I've actually eaten there many times with my family. Not a bad place, but definitely more on the "dive" side of quality. Now, this kid is 3, right? He's obviously there with his parents. There are also obviously workers there, and hopefully a few other customers. With all of those people around, how did the child manage to climb into the machine?

I can't imagine absolutely no one noticing a little kid trying to crawl into a game machine. Sure, this is Austin, a town known mostly for the sheer amount of meth that's produced by it's townsfolk and the Spam museum, but I'd think that even meth-heads might want to keep an eye on their kids every now and again.

What I think actually happened was that the parents saw what the kid was trying to do, thought it was really cute how he was trying so hard to climb, laughed at him alongside the staff as they waited for their pizza, saw that the kid somehow managed to get up into the holding area the stuffed animals come out of, suddenly thought "hmmm... maybe this isn't such a good thing", tried to get to him, and then the holding area cover shut while the kid climbed in with the stuffed animals. From that point on the parents sheepishly realized how undeniably terrible their parenting skills are.

On a side note, the hole the kid had to climb into is like 2 to 3 feet off the floor. How did a little tyke like him hoist himself up into that holding area? Is he some sort of super climber baby?

In the end, I still got a laugh out of the whole thing, especially when the article contains choices quotes like, "Workers used tools to free the boy," and "He was happy in there." But it also made me realize that there are some really atrociously bad parents out there! Watch your kids, dammit.