Last night I had to go to the store so I could buy some more food and snacks. As I was walking in, a woman and her three horrifying children came in behind me... each of them yelling about something. Finally one of the kids wanted to go look at magazines, so the entire brood went running off screaming.
What happens next is not pretty, but it does have me curious...
Okay. Let's say you have three kids. Let's further say that these three kids are going ape-shit in the magazine section. They're throwing magazines at each other. They're spilling magazines on the floor and sliding around on them. They're flinging those little subscription cards everywhere. It's total chaos in the red zone...
So where are you in this scenario?
A) You are over in the cereal aisle screaming at your kids from across the store to behave or else they will be in trouble. But you don't really mean it... it's just an empty threat. Your kids know this, so they completely ignore you. And hey, it's not your magazines being ripped to shreds, so you just don't care.
B) You are all the way across the store in the produce section. You hear your kids raising hell somewhere, but this is your "alone time" so you pretend you don't hear a thing. Why not let the store staff babysit your kids... that's what they're paid for isn't it?
C) You are at the check-out counter flirting like a whore with the guy at the register. To better your chances at scoring, you pretend that the kids going crazy over there aren't yours. Maybe if you ignore them long enough, they'll just go away.
D) You are out in the parking lot smoking a cigarette. Your kids are completely forgotten for the moment... out of sight, out of mind and all that. You contemplate ditching them at the store for a few hours so you can go get a manicure.
Have your answer yet?
Well, if you were any kind of parent at all, you would answer "E) I'm over in the magazine section beating the shit out of my kids and teaching them how to behave in public."
But if you are the bitch that followed me into the store... THE ANSWER IS ALL FOUR, A THROUGH D!!
Yes, you read that right. This bitch let her kids go insane while she was shopping, smoking, and whoring it up. She made a half-hearted effort to scream at them once from the cereal aisle, but then ignored them entirely. When I left, she really was in the parking lot loading up her groceries and having a smoke. I have no idea if she ever went back in and got her kids or what.
And I'm not being sexist here... this could have just as easily been a guy. Bad parenting knows no gender boundaries.
It's times like this I really do wish I had copies of my "Dumbasses Books" to hand out to people...
Instead, my only option is to run up and slap the bitch. But I opted not to, because I have no desire to see what the jail cells look like in rural Wisconsin.
Why, why, why, WHY isn't there an intelligence test required before people are allowed to have kids? From what I have seen, it would cause quite a dip in the population (because most people are really, really stupid and should never have kids) but I would be okay with that.
Dumbasses shouldn't be breeding anyway.
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Wow, that is unbelievable. I admire you more and more each day, Dave. Preternatural restraint. I would have performed a Three Stooges slapfest routine on her ass.
Why is it that the mindless ill equip masses land at the intersection of horny and fertile? And prudent
Nobel Laureate type, loving, attentive, parent spend there reproductive years trying to fortified sperm counts and egg production. Here in California we run TV ads telling parents how to feed there own kids!! some time freedom pisses me off!!
Dave, I see that you find Wisconsin very inspiring 😉
You have a great sense of humour.
Your experience reminds me this add.
http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/use%20condom/video/21723
Perhaps you have seen it before. But in case not…
Because a pre-parenting intelligence test would make far too much sense for our government to deem it a logical option. And, no, this comment is not just for the Bush government. It’s any governmental official that this comment is directed at. If it makes sense, they overlook it.
I bet she was one of those nasty barfly types and her kids all looked, ahem, different from each other. Yuck.
Why can some people who’d make great parents not have kids and people like that end up having 14? Sometimes I think that the human race is trying to breed iself out of existence.
Really, really stupid people should never have kids and should not be allowed to drive. You are lucky that you don’t work in a retail atmosphere. Your story is mild compared to what I see on a day-to-day basis. Plus I drive a lot. I get the double whammy ~sigh~
AMEN!!
Were you at least able to get your Corn Puffs?
I have a few friends who have gone or will go through the adoption process. It FLOORS me that they get grilled for months, pay many thousands of dollars and have to expose every detail of their lives and personal psyches to complete strangers to get their adopted kids, when some ho-bag can just get knocked up no questions asked and boom she’s a mom. It’s harder to get a dog than it is to have a kid.
It really makes me wonder.
And it kinda pisses me off……
I hope those kids got lots of paper cuts. That is a TERRIBLE parent.
I couldn’t agree more, my friend. Even though you DO say “whoring it up” like it’s a bad thing.
And once again I am in complete agreeance. One day your books will be on coffee tables in receptions everywhere, put out as essential reading. And these books will be taught in schools as ‘Life Lessons’… and what a great future that will be.
In the immortal words of Harvey Danger:
Only stupid people are breeding
The cretins cloning and feeding …
I don’t understand why a store manager didn’t order those kids out of the store, if the mom wouldn’t control them.
Yikes, I hate when parents refuse to parent.
It’s more about common courtesy then intelligence, though. Courtesy is going the way of the dinosaur.
Bet if they made it legal for just anyone to smack a misbehaving child, if the parent wont, we’d have some pretty well behaved kids in public. Not that I’m advocating that, just a thought.
That is kinda funny in a way, but then again there seems to be a de-evolution going on in terms of ability to parent. Yesterday on my flight to Florida, there was a crying baby sitting behind me and the mother let the baby jump around on the seat tray attached to my seat and throw baby toys around the side.
wow. I’ll remember never to leave my kids running around a store the next time I see you 😉
If it were only so easy as regulating who could be parents. sadly, anyone with a half-decent reproductive system and hormones can give it a go…
Rat-bastard parents who can’t or, worse, won’t control their children in a public place should be publically strung up.
And, I wonder why I don’t have kids yet, or ever, for that matter.
Look, her brother should have been there to help her. I mean they are probably his kids too!
I hate these stupid bitches with their 10 kids going around trashing the place while they’re out chain smoking or whatever.
They don’t really want all those kids, they just don’t understand the concept of birth control (that’d be a better dumbass book I think).
Perhaps she figured the convenient store doubled as a daycare?
I’ve always said that there should be some kind of exam you have to pass before having kids. Other than just the practical, I mean.
Laurence… i’ve seen that commercial clip. Pretty damn funny.
As for the kids in the stores, that happens nationwide. The last time I saw something similar was in a store here in Utah. Three kids all under the age of 3, on the floor, tearing stuff off the shelfs. And thanks to our ultra P.C. society, it’s not ok to say anything to the kids. Even the store clerks just shake their head and say nothing… although I’m sure, they would love to add to the parents total bill all of the goods their offspring has destroyed.
WHERE in Wisconsin? I am in Milwaukee & I want to make sure I don’t go to THAT store!
Ugh. I ran into the grocery store to grab some shampoo today after work and there was a 5 or 6 year old throwing a full out kicking and screaming tantrum in the middle of the aisle while her mother pushed the cart up and down and examined nutrition information on the back of the boxes. I would much rather she read your book than the fat content of golden grams!
Because it wouldn’t help. Intelligence is NO guarantee of good manners, as I learned in my shocking stint at age 16 at the Governor’s School for the Gifted and Talented. What a bunch of cretins.
Our strategy for dealing with the tantrum-prone phase of Bella’s life is simple: We never take her into any public place that we’re not willing to leave at a moment’s notice, because in order for the threat, “if you don’t stop, we are leaving RIGHT NOW,” to have any teeth, you might actually have to PROVE IT.
When the time comes that we really need to stop somewhere and we have her with us, we tag-team it. If need be, one of us can continue on and complete the mission while the other whisks the little reprobate out to the car.
Really, it doesn’t take but once or twice to drive this point home. Of course, it does require a modicum of commitment and the willingness to inconvenience yourself to make a point.
And I, too, notice the seeming trend of thoughtful, conscientious people (like my sister and her husband) struggling with infertility, while “accidental” pregnancies seem to be cropping up like wildfires all around us!
That woman was NOT a parent, she was simply breeding like a farmyard animal does. Although cows probably have better skills. Anyone with a working reproductive system can breed, but it takes a decent man or woman to stand up and be a parent. Sadly, society doesn’t recognize the difference anymore and is attached to the idea that biology is king.
She must have had some rack. How else was she able to get away with this?
A good pair of ta-tas will get you everywhere apparently.
You know, in my day, that kind of behavior would have been accompanied by my mom grabbing our arms and saying (without moving her lips or teeth) “You just wait until we get home.” Worked every time.
It’s a long shot, but was she by chance adorned in foam curlers and a tube top?
Those people breed like rats. 3 kids you saw will have 30 kids next 10 years(maybe 5 years). And soon 300…Scary!!!
Hope you did not buy that cheese hat from Wisconsin.
I don’t like that either and it reeks of lack of respect.
However, at the same time, I’m never too quick to judge….Someone told me a story once about a man on the bus who was letting his children go rowdy, kicking the backs of the seats, tossing shit around, yelling etc etc…finally the single rider couldn’t take it anymore and was like dude, control your kids! And the man, deep in thought, clearly confused turned to the single rider and said, oh, I’m so sorry, we just came from the hospital and we were just told that my wife won’t be leaving, her illness is terminal. I’m sorry, the children are probably acting out….
I think that life is like that sometimes. Othertimes people could just be living in a bubble and don’t give a rat’s ass what their kids do. I don’t know, if it really pissed me off, I’d probably tell the kids to stop acting like asses. If it was my own kid, he’d get the look >:-P
Namaste,
Nancy
I hate other people’s children. My children are at our restaurant every day and constantly told how well behaved, etc., they are. (We have taught them properly.)
Yesterday, we had a family in the restaurant and their 2 year old kept screaming bloody murder every time his older brother left the table. I finally asked the mother to control her child as she was disturbing the other people who were trying to eat. They left shortly after. Frankly, I don’t care if they ever return to our eating establishment.
One of the nice things about owning the place is the ability to say things that you couldn’t say as a regular patron. Several other guests thanked me as I walked away from the uncouth, mannerless cretins.
Right, so dumbasses and kids…I had kids very early, and in all honesty had NO bloody idea what I was doing. That being said, I also cared enough about how my kidlets were going to grow up, and therefor, I read that Minding your kids in public for dummy’s. Ok not really, but I did do my best to, at the very least, see that my kids didn’t annoy the living crap out of every one else around them.
Stupid woman should be beaten with one of her kids.
Also, I would like to point out that I have the most well behaved kids in all the land.
Really.
I don’t know… I kind of like the built-in tests nature has for us – Darwin principles and vigilante justice and what-not. I could probably join in the hilarity about wondering why there aren’t tests to have kids (because I think it’s funny) but I’m careful to make sure I don’t really agree with it…
because….
who gets to make the tests?
Parents like that give us a bad name – I can’t fathom thinking that being in public equates to ‘someone else minding my kid’ – when i go out and encounter families like the one you described, i can barely contain my anger and I HAVE A KID! Unexecusable..definitely. Great blog!
That was some funny ass shit. I needed a good laugh. Thanks for that.
I read your article and believe maybe whoring it up, smoking a cigeratte, and making a half hearted attempt across the cereal isle is not the most intelligent parenting, but have you every thought if she is a single parent how tired some it maybe to be the only care giver of these three obnoxious children??
Secondly if half the men in the world would perticipate in their obnoxious childrens up bringing maybe the children would has less behaviour problems.
A-freaking-men to that. There’s just got to be *some* way to slow the hoards of dumbasses from multiplying. And whatever way it is has to happen FAST.
Hey…I’m not sure if this was mentioned or not…
WHY CANT PEOPLE SPANK THEIR KIDS!?!?!
I mean come on people!…its worked for THOUSANDS OF YEARS! Besides, the only people that complain about it are the poor dumbasses that didn’t get spanked!
The rest of us understand its value!
It IS ‘SUPPOSEDLY’ legal to spank your kids in like 47 states…but in must situations they just take the kid from a good home and through them into a foster home were they are KNOWN to be 1000% more likely to be abused physically, 1500% more likely to be abused verbally, 700% more likely to be sexually abused and 300% more likely to be KILLED!…best just FIRE the bloody government…AND WE COULD IF PARENTS WOULD BE PARENTS SO THIS WOULDN’T HAPPEN DANG-IT!!!…PLUS, any person applying for a ‘social services’ job should HAVE HAD 3 KIDS AND HAD ALL GO THROUGH SCHOOL AND HAVE JOBS!!!…ok im done.