Tipsy Toddlers?

All parents want their children to remain innocent and pure for the rest of their lives. All children want to grow up far too soon. Had my grandmother, who raised me, had her way I would’ve been wearing cowboy outfits and playing with my Hot Wheels cars well into my golden years. Had I had my way I would’ve had the keys to the family Edsel for my 6th birthday and been checking out the sights on Route 66 within a week thereafter. As you can tell, parenting is the art of delicately balancing these mildly conflicting points of view. Freedoms are meted out with a combination of care and fear as the little darlings evolve from darling little angels into snarling, hormone fueled, teenagers.

In other words, it’s hard enough raising a kid without getting unwanted intrusions from some idiot.

Reuters is reporting that this is exactly what happened to a mom in Michigan. She ordered her toddler a glass of apple juice and the helpful staff at Applebees served him a Margarita.

The company that owns the Applebee’s restaurant chain said on Monday it was immediately retraining its workers nationwide after a server at a suburban Detroit location accidentally served alcohol to a toddler.

The company, California-based DineEquity Inc, said it would also change the way it serves juice to youngsters to eliminate the chance of any mixups that could result in any more toddlers receiving mixed drinks.

On Friday, Taylor Dill-Reese went to an Applebee’s in Madison Heights, Michigan, where — among other things — she ordered her 15-month-old son Dominick an apple juice.

What the little boy apparently got instead was a margarita. His mom told WDIV-TV that she only realized something was wrong when Dominick “kind of laid his head on the table and dozed off a little bit and woke up and got real happy.”

The little boy reportedly began hailing strangers, too.

Applebee’s released a statement on Monday saying it was relieved that Dominick was “not seriously injured as a result of accidentally receiving the wrong beverage” and apologizing to his family “for the stress and worry this caused them.”

It said it would begin to serve apple juice to children only from single-serve containers at the table and would “retrain all severs on our beverage pouring policy, emphasizing that non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages must be stored in completely separate and identified containers.”

I have no idea what was preoccupying the mom, but how the heck did she not notice a colorful drink with a salted rim being handed to her kid? Or did the nice people at Applebees just pour the Margarita mix into a child’s cup? Either way I imagine that parents the world over will now be using a little straw to pre-taste every drink served to their children.

As if kids aren’t embarrassed enough when they’re out with the rents.

Applebees has issued an apology that contains this nugget; After receiving the Madison Heights Police report this afternoon, we know that the child was served a trace amount of alcohol (per the MHPD report published 4/11/11, “the officer checked the drink with his PBT and it registered a .014”) and are trying to get more details about this information. Furthermore, as per the police report, EMT’s checked the child at the scene and he was released.

Can you imagine sitting in the restaurant and suddenly seeing cops and EMTs swarming over a kid while you’re trying to survive your painfully bland chicken something with a side of deep fried everything? It’s enough to make you think about cooking at home. And isn’t a little bit odd that they had to wait for the police report to arrive before they figured out they’d screwed the pooch big time? I mean, wasn’t the drunk kid a good enough clue?

Oh well, in case you haven’t had enough of boring people doing stupid stuff, here’s a Jimmy Buffet video. Jimmy Buffet is, of course, the guy who thought Applebees’ food was a little too tasty for his liking so he opened a chain of restaurants that serves cardboard flavored food in several shades of brown.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!