# A response to Scylla that I can't make in MPSIMS **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 20, 2019, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964 "2019-08-20T21:41:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/241 "2019-08-22T22:43:11Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Imagining myself in such a situation I’d already be doing poorly just from all the noise; loud and shrill noises give me instant headaches. (And yes, this _does_ make some of my younger relatives painful to be around.) Once the kid shouted directly at me, thus inviting a response, I’d be very much inclined to reveal unmasked irritation in my suggestion that he stop bugging me. > > And when the mother inevitably confronted me, my response would probably not be particularly witty, and along the lines that she should please kindly get her kid under control and away from me. Things would presumably degenerate from there, particularly since I’m not really the mike-dropping stride away type. > > Fortunately for me, I apparently don’t live in the same sitcom as **Scylla** and have not been accosted this way. I _have_ seen loud bratty kids demanding things at stores -once just a week or so ago, in fact!- but the kid constrained herself to pestering her parent and I walked away, and all was well. (Okay, possibly not for the parent, but whichever.) I had a similar situation happen years ago. A pre-teen girl, apparently unaccompanied, accosted me in a supermarket and asked me for 50¢. I did not sneer, but calmly told her, “No.” “Why?” “Because I don’t know you.” “But I need it.” “I don’t care. I work for my money and don’t give it away.” No drama, no tantrum, but immature self-entitled kids do accost perfect strangers and ask for stuff. The difference is I did not attempt to spin the encounter into what I hoped would be an entertaining story. ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/242 "2019-08-22T22:49:44Z")
> [@Lance\_Turbo](#): > > This is not a rhetorical device I invented. > > [Defenders of a Racist President Use Jews as Human Shields](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/opinion/trump-ilhan-omar.html) > > [When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190726-jews-are-being-used-as-human-shields-in-the-war-of-words-over-anti-semitism/) > > [Jews are being used as human shields in the war of words over anti-Semitism](https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190726-jews-are-being-used-as-human-shields-in-the-war-of-words-over-anti-semitism/) > > [The Human Shields of the New Anti-Semitism](http://jcpa.org/the-human-shields-of-the-new-anti-semitism/) Well, fuck the N.Y. times and the Middle East monitor for trivializing the term. The fourth link describes people on top of a Hamas building, “shielding it from attack” so arguably at least in the galactic neighborhood of the original meaning of the term, though it seems to involve volunteers, I guess you can volunteer to be a human shield. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/243 "2019-08-22T22:51:38Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Once the kid shouted directly at me, thus inviting a response, I’d be very much inclined to reveal unmasked irritation in my suggestion that he stop bugging me. Im not sure why I had like you as a poster before, but this thread shows a different side to you. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/244 "2019-08-22T22:52:53Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I had a similar situation happen years ago. A pre-teen girl, apparently unaccompanied, accosted me in a supermarket and asked me for 50¢. I did not sneer, but calmly told her, “No.” “Why?” “Because I don’t know you.” “But I need it.” “I don’t care. I work for my money and don’t give it away.” > > No drama, no tantrum, but immature self-entitled kids do accost perfect strangers and ask for stuff. The difference is I did not attempt to spin the encounter into what I hoped would be an entertaining story. “Lost, frightened and denied the fifty cents she needed to make a pay phone call to her parents, out of desperation the little girl accepted a ride from a stranger. He drove her to an isolated field, raped and strangled her, and then left her body to be eaten by coyotes.” ---
**Author:** ![Isosleepy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/isosleepy/32/479_2.png) [@Isosleepy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isosleepy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/245 "2019-08-22T22:53:14Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > Well, fuck the N.Y. times and the Middle East monitor for trivializing the term. The fourth link describes people on top of a Hamas building, “shielding it from attack” so arguably at least in the galactic neighborhood of the original meaning of the term, though it seems to involve volunteers, I guess you can volunteer to be a human shield. I guess my point is that what you are trying to point out, it seems to me, is behavior similar to “but my black friend says it’s ok”. But yet we don’t call that “human shield”, because we shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/246 "2019-08-22T23:05:40Z")
I guess my point is that when one human uses another human to shield themselves from something, describing that as using a human shield is not incorrect. The idea that human shield can only be used to describe war crimes appears to be unique to you. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/247 "2019-08-22T23:11:01Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I had a similar situation happen years ago. A pre-teen girl, apparently unaccompanied, accosted me in a supermarket and asked me for 50¢. I did not sneer, but calmly told her, “No.” “Why?” “Because I don’t know you.” “But I need it.” “I don’t care. I work for my money and don’t give it away.” > > No drama, no tantrum, but immature self-entitled kids do accost perfect strangers and ask for stuff. The difference is I did not attempt to spin the encounter into what I hoped would be an entertaining story. Right? Nobody thinks he shoulda said “yes” to the kid, any more than you need to say “yes” to a teenager who begs from you. If you’d bragged about the cruel, sneering response you’d given her that made her feel like shit, well, that’d be another thing entirely. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/248 "2019-08-22T23:19:06Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Imagining myself in such a situation I’d already be doing poorly just from all the noise; loud and shrill noises give me instant headaches. (And yes, this _does_ make some of my younger relatives painful to be around.) Annoyance is understandable. Self-righteous anger at the illogical utterances of a toddler, not understandable. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/249 "2019-08-22T23:40:16Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > The whole thing is a story. A tale. An anecdote intended to entertain. > > That’s it. No doubt it started with a nugget of truth (whiny kid in store demanding something), and then was expanded in the imagination of the writer. (what did the kid want? “Lunchbox” is funnier. Let’s make it that), and then had some details thrown in (what would I have done if I had actually done something? I know, I will write an amusing description of my “sneer”). Finally, let’s come up with an amusing ending. > > Just enjoy the story for what it is; an attempt at an amusing anecdote. But no need to be critical of the author for something that happened only in his imagination. You seem to present this as a good (or at least normal) thing. It would just make him a liar. It wouldn’t be filling in unimportant details or simplifying, but actually changing the entire point of the story. If I appreciated it as “an amusing anecdote” that is made up, then I’d just think of him as pathetic, more so than any other Doper (other than a poster with a troll persona). Why the fuck try to make yourself look cool here of all places? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/250 "2019-08-23T00:06:09Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Making excuses for bad public behavior for a child left uncorrected by an adult, on the grounds of hypothetical food deprivation, is sort of lame but not dumb. > > Trying to equate hypothetical hunger with “low blood sugar” is ignorance, which I (perhaps pedantically) attempted to correct. > > Going on to suggest that **hypo** glycemia is the same thing as diabetes does make you a dummy, at least on this subject. > > _**[PEDANT ALERT](http://medicalnewstoday.com/articles/166815.php)**_ > > So congratulations. Also, good christ, man, way to pretzel your way into a dumbass and thoroughly inaccurate reading of what I wrote. I hope it brings you joy. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/251 "2019-08-23T00:16:05Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > I had a similar situation happen years ago. A pre-teen girl, apparently unaccompanied, accosted me in a supermarket and asked me for 50¢. I did not sneer, but calmly told her, “No.” “Why?” “Because I don’t know you.” “But I need it.” “I don’t care. I work for my money and don’t give it away.” > > No drama, no tantrum, but immature self-entitled kids do accost perfect strangers and ask for stuff. The difference is I did not attempt to spin the encounter into what I hoped would be an entertaining story. Now I want to know why she needed it. > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > Im not sure why I had like you as a poster before, but this thread shows a different side to you. Oh well. He regularly spanks Octopus. I’m prepared to let a few things slide. > [@VinylTurnip](#): > > “Lost, frightened and denied the fifty cents she needed to make a pay phone call to her parents, out of desperation the little girl accepted a ride from a stranger. He drove her to an isolated field, raped and strangled her, and then left her body to be eaten by coyotes.” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/252 "2019-08-23T02:06:55Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > He regularly spanks Octopus. I’m prepared to let a few things slide. Also, it’s one thing to acknowledge that you’re not good with kids and that out of irritation and stress you might act kind of mean towards them if they’re gratuitously bugging you. It’s another thing to treat your mean impulses as something to **brag** about as a “justified” response. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/253 "2019-08-23T03:46:11Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > If I appreciated it as “an amusing anecdote” that is made up, then I’d just think of him as pathetic . . . The whole thing is so just stylistically belabored that it’s hard to appreciate one way or the other. If it’s not true, then it’s just annoying for no reason. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/254 "2019-08-23T04:32:06Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > “Lost, frightened and denied the fifty cents she needed to make a pay phone call to her parents, out of desperation the little girl accepted a ride from a stranger. He drove her to an isolated field, raped and strangled her, and then left her body to be eaten by coyotes.” LOL, no. Afterward, I was loading my groceries into the car and she rode past me on her bicycle and gave me a punch. I just laughed. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/255 "2019-08-23T04:33:00Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > He regularly spanks Octopus. I’m prepared to let a few things slide. A plague on both your houses. The enemy of my enemy may not be a friend. Etc. Etc. Like **Left Hand** , I’m a teacher and saying no is part of my job. Learning to actually be the fucking adult in the room is another. ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/256 "2019-08-23T12:32:28Z")
I think a lot of people are being very harsh on \*\*Scylla \*\*here. I read the original story as a cry for help. Clearly, it didn’t happen as written. There may well have been a minor incident that acted as the trigger. But something else drove Scylla to create this tale. And what is it a tale of, exactly? Consider the dramatis personae. We have the child: emotionally undeveloped, entirely egotistical, unable to moderate his own behaviour, making unreasonable demands of all and sundry without any regard as to basic propriety. We have the mother: ostensibly the grown up who should be checking this behaviour, she has all but given up on her responsibilities - allowing the child to make demands of passers-by, and only rousing herself to get involved when she sees the need to defend her baling offspring from criticism by others. And finally we have Scylla. An innocent passer-by, drawn into having to deal with this child by the mother’s negligence. In this fantasy, Scylla is capable of doing what needs to be done to put the child in his place. He has the power. But he is, clearly, conflicted about it. He views it as unpleasant, and worries it might expose him. He fears the judgement of his peers, hence the hasty exit. But he consoles himself that he did what needed to be done. However poor and socially unacceptable his behaviour, it put the brat in his place. Do we need, given that this OP was written in the same week that Donald Trump accosted the Danes with the delusional demand that they sell him fucking Greenland, to spell out the metaphor here? To point out that this out of control emotionally incontinent brat represents (indeed, embodies) Trump at his entitled worst? That the mother who has checked out of dealing with her kid in public but will still defend him against others’ attempts to control him clearly stands for the Republican party, who so many moderate Republican voters (like Scylla) trusted to curb Trump’s worst excesses? That Scylla knows that, as a voter, it has been left to him to put Trump in his place, but he struggles with the social consequences of doing so? I think we need not. This tale speaks for itself. Scylla, it’s OK. You’re OK. And it’s OK to vote against Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/257 "2019-08-23T12:51:26Z")
Wow. Post of the day! **Stanislaus** , you are beautiful, man. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/258 "2019-08-23T13:02:16Z")
> [@Stanislaus](#): > > … You continue to impress. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/259 "2019-08-23T13:15:25Z")
My eyes are open now! The bratty kid is Trump! The clueless mother is Mitch McConnell! Scylla himself is Nancy Pelosi! The Target is Denmark, and the lunchbox is Greenland! I saw on a TV show years ago that a celebration dish in Greenland is made from whole birds stuffed into a seal skin, sewn up inside, the whole thing greased up with whale blubber and buried in the ground to ferment for 6 months. It gets dug up to be eaten for weddings and other festivals. I guess those are the Big Macs Trump served to the football team? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964/260 "2019-08-23T13:47:12Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Wow. Post of the day! **Stanislaus** , you are beautiful, man. Seconded. Also, “emotionally incontinent” is an awesome expression! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-response-to-scylla-that-i-cant-make-in-mpsims/838964.md?page=14)