Between the weird thing I saw other day, and THIS THREAD about someone stealing a shopping cart, I’ve begun formulating ways to just stay home from now on. Here’s my story.
Went to the mall the other day, and as I was nearly at the entrance I passed a woman with two young kids going to their car. One kid was carrying two soda cups. Mom told her to get rid of them, so the kid obligingly threw them on the ground. What does Mom do? Nothing - she begins putting the kids in the van, and didn’t appear to be in a hurry about it.
Let me repeat: A kid, at her mother’s request, threw garbage on the ground and left it there. Twenty feet away from a garbage can. And this was both hunky and dory with the mother.
I went over and picked it up, staring mom in the eye, and said, “You know, there are garbage cans around here.” No reaction.
Why must we share the planet with people like this? I can’t remember ever seeing so many people behaving so thoughtlessly, but it seems stuff like this is now commonplace.
This may seem small, but it’s dumb crap like this that makes me wonder WTF is going on with people these days?!
I get to feeling like you do every once in a while. What is wrong with people? I have a theory that the culture of child-worship is what caused all this. A lot of people have the impression that they are precious and any delay to their gratification is unacceptable. The world revolves around them, and they must experience NO discomfort at all, ever. I’d venture to say it’s so widespread now, there’s no hope for a cure.
Eventually, I may have to just claim disability due to mental distress and stay home. When I have to go to a store or the like, I’ll have a friend drive me and a prescription for Valium.
I saw something similar recently; a guy sat in his car, and tossed his cigarette package wrapping out his window - the garbage can was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS FRICKIN’ CAR. He would have to walk about three steps to have used it. I was sorely tempted to go pick up his wrapper, pick it up and hold it so he can see it, and put it in the garbage can, staring him in the eye the whole time, but I’m afraid of getting shot. I would have probably got the “no reaction,” too; I guess if you’re the kind of person to just throw the wrapper out your window, you’re not the kind of person who cares about who throws your garbage away for you.
I’m about ready to buy some land for my isolated compound.
I can totally top this story. I may have told this story here before, but I tell it a lot. It’s boggled absolutely everyone I’ve ever told it to.
Last summer, my mom and I had just parked in the street next to our favorite thrift store, ready to get rid of the change in the bottoms of our purses. I turned to unbuckle my seat belt, and saw something out the window that I just could not believe was happening. I pointed it out to Mom and she was dumbfounded. Neither of us could fathom why someone would do this.
In the parking lot of the thrift store, a woman was standing at the open side door of her van. With her were three boys, all under kindergarten age; the youngest was maybe two. This was normal. What was weird was that she had all the boys peeing in those disposable red plastic cups, in broad daylight next to a busy highway. When they were done with their business, she poured the urine out on the parking lot and put the cups back in the cupholders in the van. Yes, she poured her children’s urine into the parking lot and then put the pee-cups back into her van. The boys all seemed to accept this as normal and something they did often. No complaints or anything.
What made this even weirder is that within a two-minute drive, there were at least four businesses or churches where she could have taken her sons to use the bathroom. There was even a church across the street. We were less than a five minute drive from Main Street. There was a park with public restrooms a few blocks away. And it was the middle of a Saturday afternoon, so there was tons of traffic passing by continuously. And if it was that much of an emergency, I’m sure the thrift shop would have let her use the employees bathroom.
What the hell, woman? It was a parking lot, not a public restroom!
That is weird. Even leaving aside the fact that restrooms were available, if she was determined to have them pee outside, why wouldn’t she just have them pee on the ground? That’s, like, the justification for being male.
I’m not disagreeing that we seem to be living in a Cult of the Child, where people act as though kids come first, middle, and last, but how does that explain the adults we see living as though they were the only people that exist in the universe?
A friend of mine was having an awful day, then her son told her he “had to go”. She told him to go in the parking lot. She continued to load groceries into the car, then noticed her son. She had assumed he had to pee. The day had just gotten a little worse.
The put the cups back in the drinkholders? Wow, if you ever see these kids running a lemonade stand, please drive right on by.
Not necessarily.
When I worked at the video store, one woman would come in every other week with a small child asking if the child could use our public restroom. We would say no every time. And every time, she would raise a HUGE stink about how we owed it to the public to cater to the needs of children’s bladders. There would be a verbal exchange on this that would last about 20 minutes, with the kid doing a more and more desperate pee dance.
Looking up their address, it turns out they lived a 5 minute walk away.
10 minutes after they left, the husband would call up and bitch us out for another 20 minutes.
The reason we wouldn’t let the kid use the place was that the toilet was in the office. We weren’t insured for that. I wasn’t allowed to let the mother back there with the kid. I certainly wasn’t going to go back there with her myself, nor would I let her go alone. In addition we had high shelves full of heavy items, dangerous cleaning chemicals, expensive video equipment, and credit card information for thousands of customers.
Yesterday we went to a park for a picnic beside the lake. Not ten feet from the “NO FISHING-NO HUNTING” sign were two well-dressed young men with fishing poles.
I didn’t actually notice the sign until a little boy walked right up to them and pointed to the sign, read it to them, and they laughed. “Oh we’re not fishing; we’re catching turtles”. With fishing poles.
Right then one of the guys pulled in a fish and the little boy asked if he was going to throw it back. The guy said he was going to keep it in his bucket a while before he threw it back.
I asked the little boy if his parents had cell phones (I don’t have one) so the guys could be reported. He ran off to ask, and the guy shot me a dirty look. I asked him why he thought it was okay to catch fish here, and he claimed again he wasn’t catching fish, just turtles! Surely he realized that catching turtles with fish hooks was any less against the rules of the park. They were just laughing at us, blatently disregarding the posted rules and tossing their hooks out there right among the geese and ducks. Perhaps after they had their fill of turtles they’d start duck fishing. :rolleyes:
I finally left the area, went searching for anyone in charge but never found any sign of a ranger-type person. I called the park number when I got home but I could only leave a message since the office was closed on Sunday.
I won’t say it ruined my Mother’s day but it sure put a damper on our little picnic. WTF was I supposed to do, wrestle the pole out of the guys’ hands? Just mind my own business and hope no kids got a hook in the cheek? (They didn’t have reels) Pretend I didn’t see anything?
I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting. I don’t think I am though.
My mom did the same thing but I think it was 20 times. It really helped with anger managment IMO. If I got pissed and slammed the door again or refused the first time then it turned into fifty or more times. I got out of the habit of slamming doors rather quickly
astro, I added a heads-up to your post. While I’d think it should be safe for most workplaces, it’s still a bit much to spring on people unawares. (This is not a warning, just an fyi.)
