Monday, May 14, 2007

just my luck...

Friday afternoon: I have made my 20 minute dash to the train station and have carefully chosen a seat. I take out my very important reading material (The 100 Most Beautiful issue of People) and am settling in for my trip home when.... dun dun dun... the World's Worst Mother and her little bratty child (mentioned in an earlier post) come into my car and sit...wait for it.... directly across from me! I could NOT believe it when they sat down there and by that time, it was too late for me to move somewhere else. Instead, I pulled out my iPod (which remains my best friend on these train trips! Best purchase I ever made. Seriously.) and put on some soothing music (a little Renee, a little Patti... ahhh).

For a while I thought it would be okay. They were sitting with a friend of the mom's and the adults were chatting and giving the kid swigs from a bottle of Pepsi (I wasn't allowed to have pop until I got to high school. Okay, maybe that's an exageration - but not by much! Now of course, I can't get through the day without a coffee in the morning and a diet coke at lunch. I fail to see the logic in giving a 3 year old lots and lots of pop. Maybe it's b/c I am not a parent?)

The adults talked and completely ignored the kid. He started yelling to get their attention. Nada. So, he threw himself on the floor, crawled under the seat and started climbing around on the seat behind them - and all over this other passenger with her laptop. The passenger behind me muttered something semi-under her breath like, 'don't pay any attention to him, or anything.' The climbed on lady was nicer about it than I would have been. The mom didn't even apologize to her. She kind of got up and tried to get the kid to sit down, but she didn't do much. She should have gone over and picked him up, but she didn't want to interrupt her conversation. The kid wandered off and went to the upper level of the train where he climbed around up there and dangled himself over the side. Do you think the mom paid any attention then?? She did not. But she could see she was annoying people, so she packed up their stuff, got the kid and left the car. Why discipline the kid and improve the behavior when you can go off to another carriage and annoy different people??

Oooh, it bothers me so much. You can't be angry with the child, because he's too young to know any better. But it's just startling the lack of respect for other people from the 2 adults who were with him. He's going to grow up thinking it's okay to do whatever because there were just no boundaries.

Have I mentioned lately how I am never having children?

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