h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Send em all to... wherever, on the B Ark.

I've done another 12-hour shift today. I can't be arsed to cook after it so I reckon I'm going for a couple of pints and some nosh at the bar across the street from where I live. I get there at a little after 9pm and take a seat at the bar. At a table not far away are a couple of people, parents presumably, and two kids - a five-year-old and an eight-year-old I reckon, and they're both making it abundantly and loudly clear they'd much rather be somewhere else, In bed. I suspect. I don't blame them.

Soon, they leave.

An hour later I notice, at a table in the opposite direction (an hour later, I said - in other words 10pm) two more people with, I reckon, a four-year-old, a seven-year-old, and a baby. At 10pm.

Seriously?

I can remember when I had to be in bed by 7pm. I remember it specifically because 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea finished at 7.00 and I usually didn't get to see the end of it. I can also remember having to go to bed before the end of Coronation Street, In other words, before 8pm. In both cases it was light outside during the summer months.

Where do dog owners come into this? Well, they mostly seem to think their pets are as ootsy cutesy wootsy as parents think their brats are.

They aren't. I'll be doing laundry on Saturday to get the muddy paw prints off my trousers

Yes, I agree about parents that keep their kids up ridiculously late.

I will admit, though, before I got to the specifics, I was going to get all indignant--*I'm* both a parent and a dog owner, and I don't *wanna* go on the B ark

But... The dog liked _you_...






But, yeah... I get it. We dog owners can't always control our dog's more ebullient behaviour, and some don't try. When I go to the dog park, I don't mind so much getting muddy paw prints on my jeans. But if it happens at the bar, I would expect an apology at least (a beer would be better).

Oh... and the city-wide ban on smoking in Austin and other cities had an unexpected consequence. The smoking sections were typically free of snotty, bawling, smelly children

That's what happened to pubs in Britain. WE (aged 6 and 8) used to have to sit outside in the car and our Dad would bring us a Britvic pineapple juice each while he stopped off for a pint on the way back from riding lessons on Sunday mornings. Nowadays adults can't have adult time anywhere.

we had to sit outside with a bottle of coke and a paper straw and a packet of crisps

I don't generally have a problem with children being out late-ish (you don't know the circumstances) as long as they're not being loud (I don't mind a bit of laughing or whatever) and screamy and running around and generally horribly annoying.

There are places, obvs, that children don't belong, but I worry that these days people just don't tolerate children so they don't know what children are like. IYSWIM?

But then, I have never ever had a problem telling people that their children (or themselves) or their dog, or whatever, is disturbing, rude and out of order. Or pointing that out to the management.

As for dogs. I loathe the smell of dog. I really really can't stand it. Which is a shame because I actually like the idea of having a dog later when I'm retired.
I don't like them slobbering on me. so if they come within about a foot of me, without me initiating it - I will tell the owner to take it away. And no amount of "oh he likes you" or "he's just friendly" will cut it with me. And I do a very good steely eyed, clear voiced instruction to do what I say.

You've hit the nail on the head, Sho. The idea that it's a dog (or a kid), and therefore it's cute and therefore everything it does is cute and therefore everyone is going to like it and love it.

No!

Now, cats on the other hand

with you on the cats and the hatred of children in pubs. sadly, not helped here, in pubs, by the presence of so many adults, who just behave like children. - almost makes me lose my cool, more often than i'd like.... and I'e a lot of cool... maan.... but... i just wanna turn round and punch their ing lights out, as twenty... thirty... forty... fifty ... years olds, behave worse than early teenagers.... - no concept of how one behaves, being, like actually determined, regulated, possibly, shock horror, even 'reduced' or 'quelled' or 'altered' by the place where one is... like, when in public. - I can swear with the best of htem, but, no. one doesn't, in public. its not adult. . . . well, isn't for me, and in my world. but... seemingly no one else kinda alters their behavior and .... makes me rather cross... and.... intollerant, which i don't like being