True Story© Disciplining OTHER People's Kids
[Phlip note: I know I hit y’all off Tuesday already, but that
was special coverage for the pagan holiday]
True Story©
Disciplining strangers’ kids without touching them.
One of
the problems I hardly EVER have at home or in public is my child doing anything
that requires any real discipline further than “Ava, knock it off.”
Other people, though?
Y’all have some fucking DEMONS and seem to want to spend time with them
in public instead of your own homes. Bad
behavior should not be rewarded with the kind of excursions and adventures that
people tend to grant their children.
Hell, one time when I was like 8 or 9, my brother and I were not allowed
to go to the damned grocery store with my mom because I knocked like 4 jars of mayonnaise
(this was when the jars were still made of glass) on the floor in Winn Dixie and
a man slipped on it and almost fell.
But I digress…
Some of the insolent little shits that you people tend to turn loose on stores
and public spaces makes me hate you and serves as birth control to most people
of sexing age.
One day
a couple of years ago, I decided that it was my duty to do something about it
to discipline the kids AND the parents involved in these situations. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants when I
come upon one of them.
Scene 1:
I’m in Target, trying to buy Hot Wheels… Anyone who knows me knows how I get down with Hot Wheels, I need to be uninterrupted and unbothered. Unfortunately, on the next aisle behind me, there is a kid playing loudly with some noise making junk, REALLY bugging the shit out of me considering I heard “I am gonna be right over here” from his mother just before the noise intensified. After three attempts to work through the distraction, I stepped over to the aisle and told the kid “your mommy says you can have anything on this shelf if you quiet down just a little bit for the other people in the store.” Kid’s face LIGHTS up, never even stopping to question who the fuck this fat bearded man is to be telling me this. He simply shut it up, picked out the toy he wanted and I went back and selected six or seven cars of the hundreds in the store and matriculated to the registers, so as to be as far from the scene of the crime to preserve plausible deniability.
I walked around the store a little more, grabbed a couple shirts for Ava, paid for the cars, waited near the registers, fiddling with my phone as if I had something important to look at while I waited for the show. I even sat down for the show. Wouldn’t you know it, kid is screaming bloody fucking murder and his mother looks COMPLETELY flustered trying to determine “WHAT MAN?!!?” in response to who told him that he could have a toy today. The kid couldn’t be understood through his sobs, but I fucked around and stood up a liiiiiiiitle bit too early and the kid pointed to me. She looks over to me, “excuse me, sir! Did you tell my son that he could--…” but I acted like I couldn’t hear her and walked out to the car and bounced.
I’m in Target, trying to buy Hot Wheels… Anyone who knows me knows how I get down with Hot Wheels, I need to be uninterrupted and unbothered. Unfortunately, on the next aisle behind me, there is a kid playing loudly with some noise making junk, REALLY bugging the shit out of me considering I heard “I am gonna be right over here” from his mother just before the noise intensified. After three attempts to work through the distraction, I stepped over to the aisle and told the kid “your mommy says you can have anything on this shelf if you quiet down just a little bit for the other people in the store.” Kid’s face LIGHTS up, never even stopping to question who the fuck this fat bearded man is to be telling me this. He simply shut it up, picked out the toy he wanted and I went back and selected six or seven cars of the hundreds in the store and matriculated to the registers, so as to be as far from the scene of the crime to preserve plausible deniability.
I walked around the store a little more, grabbed a couple shirts for Ava, paid for the cars, waited near the registers, fiddling with my phone as if I had something important to look at while I waited for the show. I even sat down for the show. Wouldn’t you know it, kid is screaming bloody fucking murder and his mother looks COMPLETELY flustered trying to determine “WHAT MAN?!!?” in response to who told him that he could have a toy today. The kid couldn’t be understood through his sobs, but I fucked around and stood up a liiiiiiiitle bit too early and the kid pointed to me. She looks over to me, “excuse me, sir! Did you tell my son that he could--…” but I acted like I couldn’t hear her and walked out to the car and bounced.
Hell,
at least I pointed to the middle shelf, where the toys weren’t SUPER expensive.
Scene 2:
Spring day last year, I am in a large park with Ava. I hate being outside when it is warmer than 79.367245° outside, but my child LOVES the outdoors so sometimes I am just gonna have to break that sweat and live with it. If you know anything about NC it’s that March will generally start with a 29-35° day or three, but by the 15th, your ass had BETTER have your spring gear ready to roll… Needless to say, by early June, heat stroke is a real possibility.
Anyway, I am telling a story here.
We’re in this park, I have two big-ass water bottles in my backpack for me and the princess. It is me and Ava, about 10 other kids with their mothers and I am the only man in sight. It is kind of like I am the playground dad. I see a couple of parents literally pull up, let their kids jump out of the car and pull off.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Except these little motherfuckers were about as RUDE as their as-observed parenting might suggest. Pushing other kids on the playground off of things, jumping in line, not watching where they were going as they ran around, cursing and shit. I am silently thinking to myself “gawdt, this just could NOT get any worse,” and as soon as I thought that I hear the minstrel tune of a ice cream truck coming up the hill in the park.
Shit.
The children ALL yelled “ice cream!” and ran to their mothers for permission and money to buy ice cream. Me, with a still-4-year-old, accompanied my child to the oncoming vehicle to make the purchase. It wasn’t so bad, only like $1.75, so there’s that. At issue was the little gremlins and how I imagined their running around messing everything up would create a situation. Their parents not there to consult for ice cream, I was NOT about to go in my pockets and buy something I didn’t know they would be allowed to have at home given dietary considerations, religion and allergies.
But they had gotten on my damned nerves, so I had to do something…
“I’m sure your mommy will grab you some when she comes back and he comes back around,” I said to the largest of the gremlins while Ava enjoyed her Mickey Mouse pop next to me.
Spring day last year, I am in a large park with Ava. I hate being outside when it is warmer than 79.367245° outside, but my child LOVES the outdoors so sometimes I am just gonna have to break that sweat and live with it. If you know anything about NC it’s that March will generally start with a 29-35° day or three, but by the 15th, your ass had BETTER have your spring gear ready to roll… Needless to say, by early June, heat stroke is a real possibility.
Anyway, I am telling a story here.
We’re in this park, I have two big-ass water bottles in my backpack for me and the princess. It is me and Ava, about 10 other kids with their mothers and I am the only man in sight. It is kind of like I am the playground dad. I see a couple of parents literally pull up, let their kids jump out of the car and pull off.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Except these little motherfuckers were about as RUDE as their as-observed parenting might suggest. Pushing other kids on the playground off of things, jumping in line, not watching where they were going as they ran around, cursing and shit. I am silently thinking to myself “gawdt, this just could NOT get any worse,” and as soon as I thought that I hear the minstrel tune of a ice cream truck coming up the hill in the park.
Shit.
The children ALL yelled “ice cream!” and ran to their mothers for permission and money to buy ice cream. Me, with a still-4-year-old, accompanied my child to the oncoming vehicle to make the purchase. It wasn’t so bad, only like $1.75, so there’s that. At issue was the little gremlins and how I imagined their running around messing everything up would create a situation. Their parents not there to consult for ice cream, I was NOT about to go in my pockets and buy something I didn’t know they would be allowed to have at home given dietary considerations, religion and allergies.
But they had gotten on my damned nerves, so I had to do something…
“I’m sure your mommy will grab you some when she comes back and he comes back around,” I said to the largest of the gremlins while Ava enjoyed her Mickey Mouse pop next to me.
I didn’t
even get to hang out for the fallout of this one, as soon as Ava said she was
tired and wanted to go, we got in the car and went on about the rest of our
day. This was only about 25-30 minutes
later. I hate we had to end it when we
did, as I saw the boy’s mother coming up the hill with the ice cream truck two
cars behind, stopping at each of the park’s three playgrounds. I just KNEW this shit would be epic and started
to turn back to witness it, but Ava was asleep already so I let it go.
I could
continue on for weeks about the slick shit I do and say to kids, but I am
reaching TL;DR length on this post. Know
that I keep my eye on unattended children, both protectively and as the jerk
who will step in and fuck up their WHOLE day with a well-placed and totally
malicious fib if they misbehave.
Because disciplining a kid does not always involve putting a
hand on them.
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