Got Cavities?

This week for a change of pace, I wandered away from the Chinese food place and posted in front of a candy shop we'll call "Rotchur Teeth." While posted in front of Rotchur Teeth I noticed a similar trend to the snow cone place. Most people that went in there tended to be children. Thats not to exclude teenagers or adults, but I noticed for sure that there was certainly a trend when it came to parents taking their youngsters in. Now, let me tell you. I learned sitting in front of this place that there are more exasperated parents in the world than I thought. Most children were easy prey to this shop, as it was all white to showcase the bounty of bins filled with brightly colored candy. They had every candy imaginable, from sugar free chocolates to gummy worms to jawbreakers. Even fluorescent candy and glow in the dark. Some parents were very patient with their kids and guided them past, others let their kids indulged.... and quite possibly indulged themselves as well. However, you also got the kids, who I'll call cavity kids. Now, hear me out. These kids were the type of kids that would hold their breath, scream, cry, kick, wail... whatever it took to get to the goods. Now, there are normally two types of parents I noticed with kids like these. Saints and the fallen. Saints were normally the ones that got down on one knee and talked sense into their child, or hefted their child over one shoulder and kept on walking. The saints were the parents that did't bother to reenforce their screaming child's desire for sugar. They remained calm and dignified and went their way, knowing that their kid was going to end up making a scene with or without the candy. The other parents I decided to call the fallen. I can only assume that these parents were perhaps new to parenting, and did not have the sage experience to back their decisions that the saints did. Perhaps they had every bit of experience but had soft hearts, or were too tired to deal with their child. Instead of trying to explain why the kid couldn't have candy, or even just walking off with the wailing creature, they panicked. Looks of terror crossed over their face, and some even winced at the prospect of having to walk by the store in the first place. Most times once the child wailed long enough, the frazzled parent would give in and take the child in, allowing them to fill up a bag with sweets. My heart felt for them, it really did.
One thing was for sure though, a common line among most parents when the child asked "Why not?" was "Because it will rot your teeth."
Though this may be true, I could only imagine the plethora of other reasons why these parents didn't want their kids to ingest high levels of sugar. Destruction, came to mind. Utter destruction.
Children set aside, I found that Rotchur Teeth showed no bias in the crowd of people it attracted. Though it certainly seemed to be much more popular to the smaller kids, teenagers and even adults alike wandered in to get candy.