« The Candles Lasted Just Long Enough | Main | Happy New Year and All That »
December 29, 2007
Running Amok at the Aquarium
So the other day, my mother and I accompanied our out of town relatives to the Aquarium, not realizing it was going to be one of the busiest times of year for the place. Throughout the Aquarium, of course, are those neat little tanks where you can crawl under and pop up "inside" the tank in a little area surrounded by the glass. Me and the other two cousins had crammed ourselves up in there on two of them as we made our way through the River Journey section, patiently waiting for the aunts and mothers to take pictures for posterity. On the third insider tank, however, I waited for a batch of kids to take their turn and then dove in, trying to claim the tank for the minute it would take to get the other two cousins in and snap a photo of us with a particularly gigantic crab.
As soon as I crawled in however, a beastly little porker of a kid pops up right in my face--there isn't much room in the area. I say to him "Excuse me, but I'm in here right now." He replies (very loudly) "I DON'T CARE!!!" So I said, "Would you mind waiting your turn?" "NO!" Then his brother crawls in. There's only two entrances in here, and I'm sitting on my feet so I can't get out at this point. Then a third kid decides to cram himself in there. I have children crawling all over me. The mother, meanwhile, is just standing there laughing in a helpless "oh, those kids" sort of way. Eventually the kids get tired of me expressing my displeasure at them and I managed to get out. So we continued on our way through the aquarium.
As we get to the bottom of the next ramp, the mother, her friend, and her brood catch up to us. Pretty pissed about the whole thing, I called over to her "Thanks for letting your kids sit on me. That was pretty fun." She laughs as if I'm not saying that sarcastically and says "Oh, he's only one. He doesn't know any better" (not that this excuses the other kids, the eldest of whom was about 8). So I said as nicely as I could manage "Well, it's your job to teach them better."
I walked away at this point, having said all I wanted to say on the matter, but I noticed the woman and her friend were having a little powwow down the hall way. As I worked my way in that direction, trying to continue on to the next exhibit, the friend says loudly and pointedly at me "I just don't understand why an adult gets so upset over children..." So I turned to her and said "I'm allowed to enjoy the Aquarium just like anybody else." The friend gets all shocked and appalled and begins to imply that those tanks are for children only and I shouldn't get upset about what happened when I shouldn't have been in there in the first place. My mom pulled me away to get me out of the escalating argument and she happened to pull me in the direction of where the lady's kids had run off. So the lady waddled over as fast as she could, passive aggressively grunting "Oh no! Let me get him away from you," completely ignoring the obvious fact that my problem was not so much her kid, but what her kid had done. I lost my temper at that point and dropped the f-bomb so only she could hear (since I'm not really out to ruin every kid's vocabulary), told her to f-off and threw up a talk to the hand.
First off, there is nothing indicating these things are for kids only, and I've seen young folks like me and grownups enjoying them plenty of times before.
Second of all, wether or not I was supposed to be in there has no effect on whether or not you should allow your children to crawl all over a complete stranger, especially one obviously not enjoying the attention, and one who can not abandon the "child only" area until your kids get the hell off of her.
I was tired long before this incident of parents who treat the entire world as one giant playground for their children and who become personally offended when even the smallest part of it seems to not have been designed with their particular little fledglings in mind. How dare people create television shows tailored to adult tastes! As for situations that call on you to encourage your child to consider others, at the risk of damaging his confidence in fulfilling every impulse? Preposterous! An adult reminding a child that it is polite to wait his or her turn? Out of line! The community at large having any influence on instilling certain etiquette and values in the younger members of society? An infringement on our God-given American freedoms!
I'm sure these statements could come across as sensationalized by one bad experience, but I am ever so tired of commercials for channel blockers and trying to get my errands run while either hearing some parent spanking the bejesus out of an unruly youngster or completely ignoring the kid's pterodactyl-like shrieks and tantrums at the risk of an form of discipline shattering their toddler's psyche. It's always worse around the holidays with so many stressed out families running about, but I do wish I weren't constantly tuned into the problems-with-child-discipline channel when I venture out of my house.
Edit: I hear about it even IN my house!! Some crud on the news about a little girl trying to win Hannah Montana tickets by writing a false essay for a contest about her father dying in Iraq. The mom says she didn't know the essays had to be true. As my dad grumbled at the TV, "Way to teach your kid values."
| By Spike | 06:35 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://chattablogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/44446
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Running Amok at the Aquarium: