WildWop
08-30-2004, 10:45 PM
Bring Your Children to Work Day
... is the worst idea that was ever spawned out of corporate "good will." There is something about this day that makes me want to simultaneously go "awww" while slapping people really, really hard. I don't want to see your kids. If I did, I'd go to your house. But I didn't, nor will I in the future, go to your house to see your kids. That's because they annoy me.
Case in point: a Jewish mother gets on the train this morning, at a stop 15 minutes from the final destination. She has not only her two brats in tow, but her sister was apparently generous enough to lend her daughter to round out a trio of fun-loving spoiled Jewish kids. All girls, to my never ending glee, which means they are physically incapable of shutting their mouths. A piano could fall on a girl at that age, and the mouth would keep flapping well after rigor mortis set in.
How does this woman and her cadre effect me? Well I was sitting on the outside of a three-seater, with someone on the inside from a previous stop [this leaves an empty middle-seat for you spacially-impaired readers]. While playing Tactics Ogre and minding my own business, I hear the screeching of the kids behind me, and the mother say, "OK we have to stand." This is because the train car is packed for the morning rush. The kids seem confused by this so the mother reconsiders her options [bear in mind, there is a four-seater in the new NJT "Comet" class train cars--in this case there is one such car behind the one I was in]. Rather than find the kids a seat somewhere [again, in the car directly behind us], or stand WITH them, she takes the middle seat next to me and commands her kids to stand in the aisle, gripping the handles on the seat backs. Directly next to me. She has a buffer, I do not. Their antics are less than two feet to the left of my head. The bitch promptly opens her paper and is enveloped in her own world, oblivious to what her kids are doing.
I try to return to my game. Doesn't happen. If breathing wasn't automatic, it would be difficult to do with such a commotion going on so close by. I can't focus. I close my eyes, bow my head, and inadvertently become their source of amusement. "Look at all the sleeping people!" one of them says, repeating in five minute intervals over the course of the remainder of the trip.
But it's only 15 minutes, right? Not so bad! That's what I thought as well. But fate conspired with the unholy demon that wrought "Bring Your Children to Work Day" to send me another little gift in the form of a freight train. Why in God's name do freight trains share the same rail lines as passenger cars? Why did a freight train have to stop my passenger train on this particular day, for fifteen minutes? Yes, that's right: my trip time was DOUBLED. What do kids do when they are uncomfortable over a long [read: over 5 minutes] period of time? They get antsy. They get MORE noisy. I don't blame them for it. I blame their mother for putting them next to me, and for sucking at life as if she were a whore given $5.
When the train started moving again, one of the girls started groaning about standing for so long. Her feet hurt. So I look down the aisle to see if my favorite people, the assholes that get up 5-10 minutes before we reach the station to stand in the aisles and form a queue for disembarkment, are up and at-em yet. They weren't. I saw a golden opportunity here, to help myself and the kid at the same time: I got the hell outta there, up out of my seat, and out into the vestibule. I presume the groaning kid got my seat, as the volume of her groaning could only mean that she was the closest of the three to my beleaguered left ear. Win-Win.
In closing, Bring Your Child to Work Day sucks. So do inattentive Jewish mothers with multiple obnoxious offspring. Quiet, breezy vestibules are awesome, as is the satisfaction of stepping off the train and leaving annoyance behind me.
... is the worst idea that was ever spawned out of corporate "good will." There is something about this day that makes me want to simultaneously go "awww" while slapping people really, really hard. I don't want to see your kids. If I did, I'd go to your house. But I didn't, nor will I in the future, go to your house to see your kids. That's because they annoy me.
Case in point: a Jewish mother gets on the train this morning, at a stop 15 minutes from the final destination. She has not only her two brats in tow, but her sister was apparently generous enough to lend her daughter to round out a trio of fun-loving spoiled Jewish kids. All girls, to my never ending glee, which means they are physically incapable of shutting their mouths. A piano could fall on a girl at that age, and the mouth would keep flapping well after rigor mortis set in.
How does this woman and her cadre effect me? Well I was sitting on the outside of a three-seater, with someone on the inside from a previous stop [this leaves an empty middle-seat for you spacially-impaired readers]. While playing Tactics Ogre and minding my own business, I hear the screeching of the kids behind me, and the mother say, "OK we have to stand." This is because the train car is packed for the morning rush. The kids seem confused by this so the mother reconsiders her options [bear in mind, there is a four-seater in the new NJT "Comet" class train cars--in this case there is one such car behind the one I was in]. Rather than find the kids a seat somewhere [again, in the car directly behind us], or stand WITH them, she takes the middle seat next to me and commands her kids to stand in the aisle, gripping the handles on the seat backs. Directly next to me. She has a buffer, I do not. Their antics are less than two feet to the left of my head. The bitch promptly opens her paper and is enveloped in her own world, oblivious to what her kids are doing.
I try to return to my game. Doesn't happen. If breathing wasn't automatic, it would be difficult to do with such a commotion going on so close by. I can't focus. I close my eyes, bow my head, and inadvertently become their source of amusement. "Look at all the sleeping people!" one of them says, repeating in five minute intervals over the course of the remainder of the trip.
But it's only 15 minutes, right? Not so bad! That's what I thought as well. But fate conspired with the unholy demon that wrought "Bring Your Children to Work Day" to send me another little gift in the form of a freight train. Why in God's name do freight trains share the same rail lines as passenger cars? Why did a freight train have to stop my passenger train on this particular day, for fifteen minutes? Yes, that's right: my trip time was DOUBLED. What do kids do when they are uncomfortable over a long [read: over 5 minutes] period of time? They get antsy. They get MORE noisy. I don't blame them for it. I blame their mother for putting them next to me, and for sucking at life as if she were a whore given $5.
When the train started moving again, one of the girls started groaning about standing for so long. Her feet hurt. So I look down the aisle to see if my favorite people, the assholes that get up 5-10 minutes before we reach the station to stand in the aisles and form a queue for disembarkment, are up and at-em yet. They weren't. I saw a golden opportunity here, to help myself and the kid at the same time: I got the hell outta there, up out of my seat, and out into the vestibule. I presume the groaning kid got my seat, as the volume of her groaning could only mean that she was the closest of the three to my beleaguered left ear. Win-Win.
In closing, Bring Your Child to Work Day sucks. So do inattentive Jewish mothers with multiple obnoxious offspring. Quiet, breezy vestibules are awesome, as is the satisfaction of stepping off the train and leaving annoyance behind me.