# What do you do about kids yelling stuff at you (an adult)?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-do-about-kids-yelling-stuff-at-you-an-adult/401472>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 24, 2007, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-do-about-kids-yelling-stuff-at-you-an-adult/401472 "2007-04-24T16:58:45Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-do-about-kids-yelling-stuff-at-you-an-adult/401472/21 "2007-04-24T19:59:54Z")

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[QUOTE=RunSilent]  
Something similar that sometimes happens to me: teenagers and young adults who are in cars and yell at me as I walk down the street.  
[/QUOTE]

I get this quite regularly myself. We live on a kinda busy street, on a 3 mile stretch that includes 2 high schools and a community college. So there are a lot of young folks driving by.

I have gotten completely inured to it, and am able to just ignore it. It really bugs my wife, though.

I don’t understand it myself. I did plenty of questionable things when I was young, but I sure don’t recall just hassling strangers.

Not at all the same thing, but sorta related. Like I said, I live on a kinda busy street. Very often, if I’m out front gardening or somesuch, someone I know will drive by and honk. At first I found it frustrating, as it can be startling to hear a honk, and it can be very hard to identify a driver going past. But I soon learned to simply smile and wave, and make no attempt whatsoever to figure out who it was.

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**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-do-about-kids-yelling-stuff-at-you-an-adult/401472/22 "2007-04-24T20:00:12Z")

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To a question like “Do you like Slurpees?” I’d be inclined to answer “Not as much as you do, I’m sure.” This regardless of whether I thought or knew it had a nefarious meaning.

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**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2007, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-do-about-kids-yelling-stuff-at-you-an-adult/401472/23 "2007-04-24T21:00:31Z")

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[QUOTE=Gary T]  
To a question like “Do you like Slurpees?” I’d be inclined to answer “Not as much as you do, I’m sure.” This regardless of whether I thought or knew it had a nefarious meaning.  
[/QUOTE]

Depending, I might be tempted to pull out my best disapproving schoolmarm mannerisms and say “What kind of a question is that?! Do you like fudge/lemonade?” to them.

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