I was browsing through Facebook today and saw a post linking to a video that showed parents (mothers, I assume fathers never do this) how not to leave their infants in the car.

This is normally focused around running into the shop or going for a wax and deciding that maybe if your infant is sleeping, it might be good to leave the window open a gap — you know for that self regulating temperature thing – and then go into the shop/wax store, and then come back later.

{I am differentiating between leaving your infant by accident and leaving your child in the car because it is convenient}

You know in theory I can understand how this seems like a good idea.

Un-clipping the carry seat and dragging it around is not really comfortable.

An infant sleeping, should never be woken up, purely for the sanity of the parents.

It often takes you longer to “just run in quickly” rather than all the unbuckling, readjusting, finding a bottle/dummy/toy and all that.

I totally get that.

But, when you leave your infant in the car there is a certain range of things that will occur:

1. You will be judged as lacking as a parent by anyone who walks past to find your infant alone in the car.
2. The person you judged you as lacking is going to call a few other people over.  They are all going to stand and stare and your car and your infant, and mutter things that are unsavoury about you — and they do not even know you.
3. They will at some point call over the mall security guy.  Now this guy will actually not really have an opinion.  He actually does not care less either way. He does not even have a gun — if he did, he might shoot himself just to get out of this situation. But he is going to be faced with half a dozen women who have worked themselves into a froth and want him to do something. This dude knows he has no right to touch your car, the baby and now he is stuck and cannot walk away.  So he will just stand there which will draw more attention to the situation.  He may even call someone on his radio and now there are two security guys staring at the car saying something like “why are white people fucking up my day ….”
4. This is not dissimilar to how the Salem witch trials started, and when that shit starts, someone is going to be burned, and the level of actual guilt is irrelevant.
5. Someone will take out their phone take a photograph of your car, with your registration and post it on Facebook and you will be labelled “slightly wanting” in the parenting department.
6. Not one good thing can come out of this — not one, so why did you make this decision?

Okay, so that part will happen – what might occur is:

1. Someone may choose to steal your car and use the fact that you have left a window open as a good way to get into your car. You understand that the person who is going to steal your car – even if it has those stupid sticky family things on it saying that god must protect your family – is not going to take the time to unclip the baby and leave it on said sidewalk.
2. Back to guy or gal (let’s not be sexist) stealing your car – I know you put the stickie family thing on your back window and it says that god must protect your family, but he can’t do that well if you are being an arsehole.
3. Someone might decide “hey I need a baby, and this baby does not look like it is being used, and has low mileage, so I am just going to take your baby.”  Again if you are wanting this to happen, then well done you — if not, then you are again being a bit of an arsehole.  For instance if you had a an original (not a China Town original) Louis Vuitton luggage set, would you leave it standing outside next to your car whilst you popped in to Pick ‘n Pay — and assume it is going to be there when you get back?:?  No, because you are not a stupid arsehole, you realise the luggage set costs a lot of money and someone is going to nick it.  So why do you trust the universe to keep your infant safe?  Did you get dropped a great deal on your head when you were an infant??
4. Some idiot might accidentally drive into your car —- granted if you were in your car or out of your car, this could still occur, but imagine coming back and finding your baby mangled in car wreckage — how are you going to explain this to the god parents of your child?
5. I am not even covering heat exhaustion and all the environmental things which could easily kill your child in 15 minutes on a really hot day —- I am parking those issues.
6. So dude — what the fuck are you thinking — like what??  Do you remember how sore it was when this baby either exited out of your vagina or through a c-section, losing your baby is going to make these pains look like skipping through lavender.

There are series of bad situations that might occur when you leave your child unattended.

Here is the kicker, if you are reading this and you are surprised at any of the above, then how the fuck do you manage to get through the day and parallel park?

Or get your panties on under your denims every day?

I am not the best parent — some days I only just get by —- but even I am not going to leave my infant in a car unattended.  Even if I was not really that concerned with the the above, the fact that I would come back to the kloister-koek convention around my car would be reason enough to just take the child into the store with me.

If you have to watch a video on what ever platform which explains to you how not to leave your infant in a car, then NEW RULE — you really are not ready to have an infant.  Or you need to give your car keys to someone a tad more reliable than you.

If you do understand how to not leave your infant in a car, then why are you sharing this video?

Which one of your friends is that stupid that they will need this video?  And if there is that friend, then do not do a general share, tag that stupid person in your life.

This brings me back to survival of the fittest.

If you can drive a car – this means you must need to have some brain activity going on.

You managed to pass a written test, then some sort of a practical test and get the licence. You probably had to fill in a form or several, take money out of your wallet and pay someone, and get a receipt.  You may even have some sort of a loan system going, so you would have to understand interest rates and all sorts of confusing shit.

I want to almost exclude people with a CF and a CFR registration here — I drive behind these feckers nearly every day and they are like super villains.  Rules of the road and basic safety do not mean shit to these people.

They do not wear seat belts.  They swap lanes without indicating.  They reduce speed to 60km on the R300 in the middle lane for no reason — so you are bearing down on them at 120km an hour  – because they are in the fast lane —and you need to think fast or you are going to end up in their hatchback.

Their kids stand between the seats.  No seat belts.

I am particularly fond of the ones who have safety seats buckled in, but the kid is bouncing around the back seat — oh the fun for the paramedics at a later stage.

They are lost at 4 way stops.  Circles are out of their range.  How freeways works is beyond their range. They drive 60km in any damn lane they choose.  And at night they have one light in front — if you discount the inside light in the car that is on.

I don’t know why these people with these particular registration tags do this.  They are rebels — I am totally going to exclude them as I have no idea how they got their licences and how their children have lived this long.

Defies reasoning and I think there needs to be a study somewhere.  But I don’t have time for this on this blog, so let’s just exclude them and give them a few free “what the fuck are you doing” signs.

There was a series of activities going on here, which normally indicates you may have scored above 85 in an IQ test — but somehow you still manage to think that leaving your infant in a car unattended is a super good idea.

If you are that person, and I believe there are a lot of you — because SOMEONE TOOK THE TIME TO MAKE A FUCKING VIDEO AIMED AT YOU —- then please leave a comment and explain the logic here, because it escapes the rest of us.

For those who get this video on their social media stream, can I ask, you do not share this video.  It is the same as the person who does not wear a seat belt and does not buckle up their passengers.

Maybe, just maybe, this is the universe going “fuck dude, I actually can’t do anything here” and let’s leave them for natural selection to sort them out, and for their blood lines to maybe stop.

These people are not going to make it through day one of the Zombie Apocalypse, so why are we trying to save them.

There is no way in all of the green earth that this woman (embarrassingly it is always a woman) is going to come back to the car and go “thank you, you group of ranting woman for bringing attention to the fact that I left my baby in the car” …. doubtful.

Odds are she is going to tell you to go fek yourself, and then threaten you with a lawsuit (way too much television) if you take a photograph of her car.  Then she is going to reverse and hope to kill at least two of you when she does that.

This is a message at times to step back and let natural selection do what it does well.

If you are religious then look to the heavens and park this in his court, if you aren’t then shake your head say something like “m*therf*cker” and just get on with your day.  There will be one less person using our valuable water resources soon, and that is good for all of us.

I mean seriously what else are you actually going to do here?