Mardi Gras Without the Parades

I have a friend who's getting ready to go to China with her husband to work for a mission organization. She was regaling us with tales the other day of stories they heard from some former Chinese missionaries.

For instance, when in China, you need to get used to seeing people, especially children, squat down just about anywhere to relieve themselves.

Well, this afternoon, right here in America, I witnessed this very occurrence. In a Walmart.
I tend to go shopping on Tuesdays since it's my day off, and never have I seen Walmart so crowded in the middle of the day on a Tuesday! There were even more check-out lines open than usual, but the lines still wound their way out into the main aisle of the store.

While the woman in front of me was paying for her LARGE quantity of items, she turned around just in time to see the woman in the line next to us checking out...with her four-year-old son standing right there next to per peeing on the floor.

The lady in front of me tapped the mom on the shoulder while pointing to the boy and exclaimed, "Look! Look! Look!" (in Spanish because the woman with the bladder-challenged boy was probably from Mexico).

Honestly, the mom kind of gave the woman in front of me an evil look and just said, "I know."

Like it was our fault her son had urinated all over the floor...in the Walmart.

So, this got me to thinking about the big crowds and long lines in the store today, and what on earth I would have done had my child decided just as we were done shopping and getting into a check-out line that he HAD to go to the bathroom. (I'm assuming we all know small boys like that have little control over the bladder once they figure out they HAVE to go.)

Obviously with approximately 12 people in front of you in line, you would realize the process was going to take a while. All I could come up with was: get out of line, park the basket of groceries somewhere where hopefully no one will confiscate it (because the restrooms, of course, are beyond the check-out area), escort the child to the restroom, then return to your carefully hidden shopping cart and resume the check-out process.

I'm not a parent, though, so I'd love to know if there are better solutions to the problem. My solution is at least better than just allowing your little boy to pee all over the floor.
Unless you're in China. Then, apparently it's acceptable.

Oh! Happy Mardi Gras!

(And so perhaps seeing someone relieve themselves out in public all over the floor is somewhat appropriate to today's holiday after all. Maybe I should have been throwing some beads.)