Service Without a Concussion, Please

Mamakat's Fabulous Writing Prompt:  2.) Tell us about the last thing you complained about. How was the issue resolved?  This just happened yesterday, and I'm not sure how it will be resolved.

We stepped from the rain into the interior of the pizza "fun" place.  Larry, Zane, and I were there to for several reasons; to meet Larry's mother, to register for soccer, and to eat pizza.  Zane was also there to play, and he was on full throttle with excitement.  So much excitement that he hopped-ran into the restaurant, slipped on the wet tile, did almost a complete turn around, and fell on his face.  I watched his four-year-old head bounce hard off the tile.  Twice.  He lay there for a moment, stunned, and then started screaming, the baseball-sized hematoma already forming. 

I said a bad word as I picked him up.  From my view, it had looked like Zane had hit his mouth on the tile.  I was thankful that he had not, because I am not sure what the sight of him bleeding from the mouth would have done to me.  As it was, I was probably in a little bit of shock.  Seeing your child's head bounce twice off of the tile will do that to you. 

There were two employees standing in the foyer of the restaurant when this happened.  One was the cashier, and the other was just standing there, talking on the phone.  The cashier had a line of people, so I could understand why she might have missed the event, but the other girl?  I was suddenly angry about that, but I realized that part of that anger might have been fear for my son, and I took a lot of deep breaths. 

Larry was able to get Zane to lift up his head from my shoulder and saw the lump on his forehead. I was coherent enough to remember that ice helps in these situations, so I sent Larry on that mission.   While I waited, a solemn little girl approached to ask if Zane was okay.   I nodded at her, and her mother took her hand and led her away.   I took a few more deep breaths, and looked around, not really seeing anything.  I was still pretty angry at the fact that not one employee had approached us to ask if we were okay, but we needed to eat, and we needed to register for soccer. Zane had had his heart set on pizza, so when Larry came back with the ice, I told him to take Zane and sit with him and the ice pack.   

As I got to the cash register to pay for our entry to the "fun" place, the cashier mentioned something about a warm compress to help with swelling.  She was trying to be helpful, I could tell.  An extremely sarcastic comment came into my head, but I did not say a word.  I just took a deep breath.  As long as Zane was okay, he could live with a bruise on his forehead.  I could live with a bruise on his forehead.  

My husband grew up in a house with a hypochondriac, so he tends to get overly excited about medical emergencies.  I grew up in a house with two nurses, with parents who never got overly excited about medical emergencies.  Both of us understand that unconsciousness and unresponsiveness in a person following a head injury is bad.  So when Zane fell asleep after he stopped crying, we both freaked out.  I found the cashier and told her that she needed to call 911.  She looked at me funny, and I repeated my request a bit more firmly than expected.  She did make the call. 

An ambulance came, and the paramedics looked at Zane, who couldn't have been happier to have new people to talk to.  My son was talking nonstop to the guy trying to ask him questions, telling him all about how we got new tires and Juggernaut on Ultimate Spiderman.  I would not have known that he was unresponsive five minutes before, because that was a nap, not cranial bleeding. Children do that after they cry really hard.  But the paramedic recommended that we go to the hospital, because with kids, they could be fine one moment and crash the next. 

At this point, I knew my boy was fine.  He was acting like himself.  A mother knows these things. But we were going to be sure, dammit.  Zane and I got to ride to the hospital in an ambulance.  He loved it, and he launched a charm offensive against the pretty paramedic who checked his vitals every five minutes.  The ER people loved Zane, because he was happy and smiled a lot and they didn't have to be somber or serious around him, because he was obviously just fine.  They made him eat a popsicle, we waited to see if he would throw up, and then they sent us home. 

I know that accidents happen, and kids are going to fall down.  But when someone falls down in a place of  business, no matter how minor, there is a responsibility on the part of the people working there to at least pretend to be interested.  To show compassion. Not one of those employees made any effort to see if my son was okay, or if we needed help. The second my son fell, there should have been someone right there. My husband should not have had to ask for a bag of ice.  I should not have had to approach someone to ask them to call 911; an employee should have taken one look at Zane and done it.  Not only to be decent human beings. Good customer service means taking care of the people who give you profits in whatever way is needed.  At the very least, I want an apology. 

And that is what I am going to tell them today.