Friday was hot in Atlanta. I mean h-h-h-h-hot. 96 degrees hot. Landlocked hot.

Asher and I wanted coolness, but we did not want to be trapped together in the house all day despite its excellent air-conditioning, so in an effort to find just the right compromise, we decided to spend the day at the pool.

We drove to our favorite little McKoy pool in Decatur and it was closed due to plumbing issues (are you thinking what I’m thinking?) so I searched my iphone for another pool nearby and we ended up at the Glenlake Pool, also in Decatur.

It was so freaking crowded, it was chaos. Little children screaming shrilly for no discernible reason, medium-sized children shooting atomic water guns at strangers, overgrown children yelling “AIDEN!” and “EMMA!” at their little children…

As soon as we were in the water, a little girl around 5 waddled up to me in her water wings, giggled a few times, screamed the word “Octopus” at me apropos of nothing and then started splashing me in the face, punching bag-style.

Once her dad snatched her up, Asher chased me from one side of the shallow end to the other playing shark for at least an hour. We were in the pool for over 3 hours and I have no idea what we did for that long.

I do remember one thing clearly, however. Towards the end of our afternoon, Asher decided to start climbing up the ladder in the deeper end, jumping off the side of the pool into my arms and then repeating. On his second trip up the ladder, a bigger boy of about 5 or 6 was behind him.

While Asher was finding his footing on the ladder, the older boy looked at me and said with an exasperated sigh, “Why does he always have to be climbing up the ladder?”

My head automatically went into mommy peacemaker mode. It’s his turn now because he was here first, but once he’s up, it’ll be your turn.

But before I could say anything, the kid continued with a roll of his eyes. “He’s slow!” SIGH. “And he’s always just climbing and climbing, and I want to go up the ladder.”

Still looking at him, I struggled for something reasonable to say. I wanted to be nice to the kid.

As Asher stepped onto the side of the pool, the boy rolled his eyes in my direction and sighed dramatically again.

“Oh, shut up.” I finally said.

Sage advice, really.

The kid climbed the ladder and padded towards the other end of the pool.

I prepared myself for him to come marching back with his mother. And I’m not gonna lie — I was totally gonna lie.

I know it was mean. And immature.

But I am no Mother Hen. I am a Mother Lion. If you must mess with me, fine. But don’t you mess with my kid. I will take you out.

So if you’re reading this, and your (bratty, whiny) son complained to you that some woman told him to shut up at the Glenlake Pool yesterday, it totally wasn’t me. It didn’t happen. I don’t know anything about it.

But just in case, may I suggest you teach him to treat littler kids with a littler bit of respect.

Just tell him that Mother Lions roar, but they bite too.

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