Applebee’s Dreams, Or “Oops, How Did That Get In There?”

Five-year-old is “accidentally” served a Long Island Iced Tea at the Battery Park City Applebee’s, gets rocked, mother sues:

He ordered apple juice at Applebee’s — but the restaurant allegedly put so much yippee in his kiddie cup, the Manhattan 5-year-old ended up in the emergency room after a bizarre boozy bender of clowning, shouting and stumbling.

Now the boy’s mom, Cynthia Pereles, is suing the chain eatery and a downtown franchise for serving her son, Seth, a Long Island Iced Tea — a walloping cocktail of white rum, gin, vodka, triple sec, coke and sweet-and-sour mix.

“I’ve never seen him act like that before,” Pereles said of her son’s behavior during a July 2 visit to the Applebee’s on North End Avenue in Battery Park City.

Pareles, 33, said Seth, who’d been pestering the waiter, gagged when he took the first swig of his “juice” while he ate dinner with two cousins.

“I thought he was just being a pain in the neck,” Pareles said. “He sipped it again and said ‘Uch, uch. That’s nasty.'”

As her child’s behavior became erratic, Pareles said, she eventually took a sip and tasted alcohol.

Pereles said she confronted the staff about the drink, and that the manager admitted the restaurant somehow gave Seth the cocktail.

The mother is suing the independently owned restaurant and the Applebee’s parent corporation for $75,000.

And just to be clear, there is nothing funny about a drunk five-year-old. Nothing funny at all:

“He was laughing uncontrollably, his eyes were glazed, and he started licking the wicker bread basket,” Pereles said. “He was not Seth . . . He said, ‘Mom, I can’t listen to you because of that nasty drink.'”

The panicked mother, who says she never even lets her son drink soda, left the restaurant. On the street, Seth “was hollering, yelling people’s names, laughing hysterically and bending over.”

A police officer approached and advised her to fill out a report and call an ambulance. As a precaution, Seth was strapped into a stretcher and taken to Beth Israel Medical Center. “He crashed in the ambulance. He was so tired,” Pereles said.

Doctors found alcohol in his blood and Seth had to be hydrated, his mom said.

“He was the joke of the hospital,” Pereles recounted. Nurses giggled as Seth tried to take off his shirt. Staff came from all over “to look at the boy was who drunk.”

And the psychological scarring is severe:

Since the incident, Pereles said Seth has had trouble sleeping and has nightmares in which people die or he feels trapped and spins uncontrollably. He calls them “Applebee’s dreams.”

“He says ‘I don’t want you to die, I don’t want to die,'” she said.

Seth began seeing a therapist and has sworn off apple juice.

(It’s not the worst thing in the world to swear off Long Island Iced Teas forever, is it?)