Kids, Who Needs 'Em?
Obnoxious Kids... Do I even have to explain this one? You can't go anywhere without some stupid woman bringing in her whole brood of children. Restaurants, the mall, the grocery store... I can't leave the house without having somebody's rugrats getting underfoot. What makes it worse is when I see the parents standing idly by. Its like they are saying "yeah I know my kid is bothering everyone here, what are you going to do about it?". Did I get the last mother on the planet that disciplined her children? The annoyances generally fall into two categoriers, the tumbleweeds and the banshees. The tumbleweeds are what I call all those little kids who run about fairly aimlessly, paying no attention to where they are going. Completely beyond mom's control, they just cut loose. Especially dangerous in groups as they tend to chase one another. I have a fairly simple solution to this problem, and if I thought I could get away with it I'd do it. Trip em. Next time some little snot-nosed brat runs right in front of you, practically stepping on your toes as he blindly careens towards the toy store, ever so subtlely just stick that foot out a few inches. A couple of skinned knees or busted noses ought to be enough to get the point across to the kids, or even better the parents. Sadly, the banshees aren't so easy to get rid of. For clarification, I'm talking about those people who feel that even though they have an infant, they still have the right to go out in the adult world and do things (movies, restaurants, etc). A fine idea until little Junior starts bauling endlessly. In all my years of watching nature shows, I've not seen ANY species that just randomly cried out. Its just not tolerated in the wilds because it will get them killed. If a rhesus monkey can keep infants quiet, I'm fairly confident that a human can as well. But no, not only do these inconsiderate jerks bring their little brats with them, but they seem completely helpless to keep em quiet. And I refuse to believe that they are somehow surprised that it happened, its not like a perfectly good kid suddenly decides to go bad. No, these people knew what they were doing and decided to go on out anyway. People who have kids have brought this terror on themselves,they are in a prison of their own making. Why on earth should those of us smart enough to avoid having rugrats be forced to suffer?
Is there a cure for this? Sure. Unfortunately, punting any babies found screeching in public will probably not be legal in our lifetime.