Toddlers in restaurant... allowed to feed themselves, the table, the floor, and everybody at the surrounding tables. Look, folks. Toddlers do what toddlers do. You don't hand an arsonist a match and a gas can, and you don't hand a toddler a saucer with chocolate pudding heaped on it. It just isn't responsible. At the very least, think about the poor minimum-wage wage slave who's going to have to clean up that shit. Do you have a maid at home or somethin'? 'Cause that's the only thing I can figure, if you're gonna do stupid shit like that.
And don't get me started on the ginormous baby SUV's that clog up the sidewalks today. My mom got by with a standard folding stroller and a diaper bag (a *real* diaper bag, remember, no disposable diapers back then in the neolithic). What's with these fucking *tanks* complete with built-in toys for your precious spawn? Uh... people. Did you know that even the dumbest fucking retard in the State Home for the Mentally Feeble can pop out babies? Did you know that? You think you're special 'cause you managed to do something that a half billion other women do every fucking year? Get over yourself, already, 'kay?
-- Badtux the Misanthropic Penguin
If it hadn't of been for cloth diapers, I wouldn't have been able to be in the 100% job security, debt-free, international-border-hopping position I'm in now.
ReplyDeleteEx-Mrs. Bukko and I were Greenies, and when we decided to have a kid in the late 1980s because communism had fallen and the world would HAVE to get better, right? right? WTF happened???? Anyway, I mucked out re-usable nappies in the stink bucket for a couple years, and wiped lots of baby bum. When I was forced to change careers, it wasn't THAT hard to become a nurse, because dealing with human shit is basically the same whether it's your own child or a nursing home or a hospital. It's just that when it's diseased elders, there's more of it and it smells worse. But the skills training was already there! Being a breeder paid off.
That said, between me and the two Mrs. Bukkos, we only have one spawn amongst us, so we're doing our part to reduce the human population. And we don't drive a frickin' SUV. Backpat time, eh?
You forgot the screeching as mom and dad ignore the kid and their surroundings and talk on their cell phones. I see (and hear) that every day.
ReplyDeleteThe other part of the equation is that the parents of the toddler demands total attention from the debt slave waiting their table. Leaving you, one of the other diners at her/his station dying of thirst since you can't get their attention to get a refill or anything else.
ReplyDeleteThen to add insult to injury the offending parents leave little or no tip because they are saving the money for the babies college education. While you, a generous tipper are left to compensate the poor debt slave.
Jeeze --
ReplyDeleteYou guys sure don't think much of the human race . . .
JzB
Bukko, but did you buy one of those baby SUV strollers (the ones the size of a Ford Excursion) when you had your precious spawn?
ReplyDeleteCajun, usually that's the older kids, from around 4 to 8, who run wild all over the restaurant screeching and howling while their parents ignore them. But I can ignore that because at least they're not creating a nasty mess.
Dave, but gosh, don't you know that their precious little snowflake is too, well, precious? Unlike the other 1.5 billion children on this planet who are just unseemly other?
JzB: What have humans ever done for penguins? Other than pollute their planet, deplete their herring supply with overfishing from huge factory fishing ships, and cause the deaths of thousands of penguin chicks due to global warming causing rainfall that soaks through penguin chicks' down and freezes them to death? Well, I guess there's this whole Internet thingy, but...
- Badtux the Misanthrope Penguin
Damnit, 'Tux, I keep lookin' for a button to click on to award you five stars for each of the many articles you've written that I find enlightening, but no luck. Where you hidin' it?
ReplyDeleteAlas, Tux is right -- though I do object to the 4-8 year-olds running screaming though the restaurant, too.
ReplyDeleteMy parents would have had a collective blowout if I ever misbehaved in a restaurant, and they wouldn't have taken me into one if they had any doubts about my ability to hang out and be cool throughout the meal.
Certainly, all kids can't do that; but people don't have to inflict their screaming offspring on others, either.
Do I have children? No -- how did you guess? But I have friends whose children are reasonably well-behaved and generally pleasant to be around. If your precious is a monster, maybe s/he isn't quite so precious that you have to inflict him/her on the other restaurant patrons.
I'm with Phil - you need a rating button. Or at least a "damn, you're good!" button or *something* to help fuel the cause for when we get our heads together and decide to make Penguins the ruling species on the planet!
ReplyDeleteWhen I read things like this, it sure makes me glad that I got a vasectomy at 24 before my health insurance ran out.
ReplyDeleteI was in an Aldi grocery store two years ago, when a woman pushing a cart with four young children in it cuts in front of me. They all looked to be from ages two to five, and all four of her children were demanding pizza for dinner while she constantly told them "no". As I turned and went down the cereal aisle to get to the soda section towards the front of the store, one of the little terrors jumps out of the cart and starts knocking cereal off of the shelves in a massive temper tantrum. Since the aisles in Aldi stores are typically very narrow and the store is usually quite crowded on Saturdays, this made navigation through the area even more difficult. The rampaging child left a trail of damaged boxes and spilled cereal in his wake, and angry store clerks cleaning up the mess. The woman and her children were promptly told to leave and escorted out of the store, but it shows just how destructive one child having a temper tantrum can be.
"CHILDFREE 4 EVAH, YO!"
Finally, a truer commercial for condoms was never made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nojWJ6-XmeQ&feature=related
When I lived in England, we always took our dogs to the pub. They were better behaved (and cleaner) than many of the children I see in restaurants today.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind children being around and having fun running around and stuff. Children who are throwing food around or otherwise doing things destructive to the staff, the premises, or to the ability of the other patrons to eat food that hasn't had grubby kid hands all over it (parents, teach your children *not* to touch food on the buffet with their hands, it's not the server's job to discipline them, it's *yours*!)... that's another story. And you're right, a well-trained dog does better than some of the kids I've seen in restaurants lately. Which brings up a subject for another post, people who let their dogs run wild rather than training them...
ReplyDeleteNeurovore, I didn't reproduce when I was young because of a shortage of suitable female penguins in the locations I found myself as I migrated from place to place. Now that I'm an old penguin and set in my ways, I'm sort of glad. Bringing a kid into this world seems to me to be a disservice to the kid and to the world, biological imperatives nonwithstanding.
- Badtux the Curmudgeon Penguin