Case in point:
Recently, I was in a wildly popular establishment that specializes in caffeinated beverages. People come there for various reasons: some come just for a pretentious cup of coffee with a faux-Italian name, some are there to make sure their Match.com first date is in public and doesn't end in a missing person's report, and some, like myself, come to get some work done. I bring my laptop and plug in my headphones to give myself an alternate venue to write. So, the other day, a young lady came in pushing her stroller. As her son's feet scraped the floor, I imagined that this wasn't going to end well. After she purchased her beverage and sat in one of the plush chairs that were provided, her darling little one damn near exploded out of his stroller. In a matter of minutes, he was running around the store, dodging unsuspecting caffeine junkies and LSAT studiers, alike. As he ran from table to stranger to garbage can, the mother sat patiently and whispered "Maximo". I assumed that she was just reminding him of Russell Crowe's Gladiator because it couldn't have been his name. We'll call him Gremlin.
Gremlin continued to run around, but that wasn't the worst. Noooo. His personal game of "you can't catch me" was accompanied by melodic shrills at the top of his damn lungs! Ahhh, now his mammy will get up and calm his little ass down, I thought. I thought wrong. She stood up and shook her head, then turned to the woman next to her, who apparently has Gremlins of her own, and said, "they're a mess at this age." What? No! You're a mess at this age. Get yo damn kid! I had multiple thoughts of mushing him in his face, but I thought that might be slightly over-stepping my boundaries. I just watched as he ate a cookie from the ground and licked the "wet floor" sign. Hey, don't look at me like that. Get yo damn kid!
Now, as much as that bothers me, another situation bothered me more. Sitting in the same establishment on an entirely different day, poetically dribbling onto some pages, I was approached by a couple little boys. What follows is an exact transcript of that conversation:
Two young boys, both around the age of eight, walk up to a cool and debonair young man as he writes in a pad. The boys could have walked right off the pages of any story with main characters from Compton, the South side of Chicago, or Hoodville, USA. Their clothes were tattered and they carried football helmets.
Boy 1: Excuse me, Sir.
The gentleman, full of suspicion, removes his headphones.
Boy 1: Would you like to donate?
Gentleman: Donate to what?
Boy 2: To our football team.
Gentleman: Who knows that you're here?
Boy 1: We told my mama we was gonna come get donations.
Gentleman: How far do you live from here?
Boy 2: It took about a hour to get here from home.
Boy 1: We usually go 'round wit our coach, but we just caught the bus to get here.
Gentleman: And what do you do with the money?
Boy 1: We give it to our coach.
Gentleman: You don't spend any of the money you get?
Boy 2: No, sir.
Gentleman: None of it?
They look at each other for assistance.
Boy 1: Well, we bought some sodas and we got some pizza from next door, but we save the rest for Coach.
Gentleman: Yeah, naa, I can't even support this. Why don't y'all go home and read or something.
Boy 2: (to Boy 1) That's alright; let's go ask the white people.
Get Yo Damn Kids!!!
I totally believe in the concept of raising children as a village. But that doesn't mean that you drop your kids off at the village and you go to hit the club. Please, raise your children right before someone, not me, does more than just think about mushing them in the face.
