How Do You Get To That Point?

I haven't really ranted about anything as of late. I've given up on the TV issues, and accepted the fact that if something is in HD, I'll watch it. If not, I won't let the blood boil too much.

But this stuck with me today, and thought I'd share. I was at Walgreens yesterday, and it was pretty busy for a Walgreens. I was waiting in line behind a lady that was there with her two kids. She kept telling them to be quiet as we stood in line, and the kids were being well, kids. It was a little boy and girl, and they were smackin each other, grabbing candy, saying "Mom, watch me!" every four and a half seconds, etc.

The lady began to check out, and stopped paying attention to her kids. She felt that she was overcharged for an item, and a manager had to be paged. At this point, one kid starts chasing the other one ALL around the store. The kids begin screaming as they ran about. You can hear them as they go all the way to the back of the store.

The manager ( who at this point I don't believe knows that the kids belong to the lady he's working with ) - keeps kind of peeking over his shoulder to try to figure out why there's kids making that kind of racket. So he seems kind of surprised when the lady shouts out the kids names, and shouts the cliche line of "If you both don't get back up here, I'm going to leave you both here!!!"

Keep in mind, these kids are in the BACK of the store, and this lady just yelled that out at the top of her lungs. A confused manager ( seeming like he's not sure how to deal with the situation ) then tries to explain to the lady that she was not overcharged, and that she was mistaken. Well, the lady doesn't take too kindly to this, and begins to complain/argue with the manager.

While this is going on, the kids are getting louder, and I'm pretty sure I heard a crash that equated to a display being knocked over. The manager asked the lady if those were her kids, to which the lady replied, "Yes", and went right back to arguing with him. He kept looking back towards the back of the store, and eventually couldn't take it anymore, which lead to this exchange:

Manager: "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to control your kids."

Lady: "Don't you dare tell me how to raise my kids!!!!"

Manager: "Ma'am, I'm not telling you how to raise your kids, I just cannot allow them to be running all over the store like this."

Lady: "Well, if you people could do your jobs, and ring things up correctly, we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Manager: "Ma'am, I've told you we didn't ring it up wrong. But I have to ask that you keep your kids with you....."

Lady: "Don't talk about my kids!!! I cannot believe you would treat your customers this way!!!"

She went on to use a few choice words that I don't normally use in the blog here. I was actually impressed with the way the manager tried to handle the situation. He then just said that he would not ring her up, and that she should just leave the store. She stormed off to get her kids, which they were not too happy with, and the kids voiced their displeasure on the way out. I got a headache just from witnessing/listening to the whole ordeal.

When I thought about it, I wasn't sure how to feel about what I just saw. I was angry at the lady for a lot of reasons. She couldn't control her kids. She obviously has poor parenting skills that allowed for the kids to run off and behave the way they did. She was being a royal bitch to the manager.

But I felt sad too, that the kids had to end up with parents like that. I know that I got real lucky with the parent lottery. And I know there's no 'parenting' manual to use when you have kids. I know that had my brother and I pulled that when we were kids, there woulda been hell to pay. But I also know that it wouldn't have gotten that far. My parents wouldn't have let us run off, beating the crap out of each other.

I don't have kids, but do want them. Is it really that hard? If you're not even going to make an effort to raise them right, then why bother? If the lady doesn't like kids, don't you think she would have figured that out after the first one?

And then I thought about all the people that just live their life in a constant state of being pissed off. You know the type, they're always short-tempered, angry types - no matter what the time of day. How can you manage to go through life like that? How do you summon the will to get out of bed in a mood like that? At what point of after 20 or so years of living like that, do you decide to not lay on the train tracks that day? Those kids have to live with that lady everyday for atleast the next ten years of their lives. That is, if they make it that far. I can only imagine this is where the 'rebellious' crowd comes from. These will probably be the kids doing heroine or in juvenile detention by the time they're 16. What a sad, sad way to go through life.

As for me having kids ( scary thought I know. but hey, if Damion hasn't screwed up his kids yet, then I've got a fighting chance ) - I would like to tell everyone I know that if you ever see me encounter anything like the above with my kids, I grant you two rights. First of all, I'd like you to beat my children for acting like that, and second, I give you the right to smack me over the head for allowing it to happen. I don't care how 'bratty' kids can get. A good parent can still control their own kids. Shame on that woman.