The Vented Spleen
Created | Updated Jun 22, 2003
There I am, doing the weekly shopping. I don't like doing this. I hate big supermarkets and the way they just
seem to shovel the food out at you. I much prefer to be able to take the time looking over the stuff I want to buy.
I mean, what's the point of buying a bunch of bananas, say, only for them to turn black within a couple of days?
But that isn't my rant this week. I was there, mildy pushing my trolley down the aisle when a kid comes running
around the end of the aisle, runs down it screaming something unintelligible and when he runs past me, he hits me.
No kidding, this kids throws out his arm and punches me. The kid must only have been about four or five years old,
and there I was, all six foot five of me, and he hits me and runs off down the aisle. Now normally, this sort of
thing would get me extremely irate. I'd follow the child to find his parents and give them a bit of a mindful as they
obviously don't have enough of their own. But I was in a relaxed mood then, so I didn't let it bother me.
However, two aisles later and I'm there looking through the spices when a little girl comes up to my trolley and
starts looking through it. Okay, no harm. Then she starts pulling things out of my trolley and really looking at
them. So, I ask her for the item back. What does she do, she runs off crying. All I did was ask her, in a calm voice
I add, for my pack of spaghetti back. No problem to me, I merely pick another packet off the shelf and carry on
shopping, until this bloke approaches me with two children in tow.
One, a little boy with a mouth covered in chocolate and a pack of biscuits in hand, and the other, you guessed
it, a little girl in tears. This bloke then has the audacity to start having a go at me, about how would I like it
if he were to hit me in the same way that I had apparently hit his kids.
Fortunately for me, six years of bar work, dealing with this sort of idiot, meant that I was in no way intimidated
by him. I merely told him my side of the story, pointed out that the supermarket had security cameras that would
back me up and would also be used in a court of law if he dared to lay a finger on me, and asked him if he knew
what his kids were really like. Of course he did, he went on to protest that they never did anything wrong, and
that he always knew what they were up to. So you can imagine the irony when he turned around to find the little boy
now eating raw eggs and the little girl nowhere to be seen.
So, my vent this week is parents who let their kids get away with anything. Those who stand around completely
oblivious of their children. The ones who don't keep an eye one them, who don't teach them how to behave.
Basically, people with children who, through their own ignorance, aren't fit to be parents.
