
I have written a few blogs about this, but have not posted them. I get distracted when the squirrel walks past.
I am starting to become aware that when a person has a child — through what ever route — somehow there is this perception that somehow they are terribly special. And their off spring is the most special in the universe.
Like not special-class special, but more “the Chosen One” special.
I drop Connor off at his school in the mornings – he is at Fairmont High School.
I have only good things to say about the school.
I drive him to school. Because he refuses to walk. I have tried to press him on the issue, then he starts using phrases like child abuse ….. and quoting the Childline number. I drop him at school and watch him walk through the school gate.
Once he is through the gate he is someone else’s problem. That people, is how parenting works.
You can imagine — if you can’t — try —big school, lots of kids. Most cars are dropping one child off — at most two, so there are a lot of cars moving through the gates from 06h45 – 07h50. It’s controlled chaos basically.
The school has various drop off points. You can drop your child off at one of the side gates, and the result is it reduces the congestion with everyone trying to enter the school.
Makes sense. It’s a really good system. Very easy to understand and follow.
At every drop off point there are red lines – clear red lines – so you know not to park OR STOP your car there. If you do it creates a situation where other cars cannot pass or see you or what ever. It’s a red line. IT’S A CLEAR RED LINE.
I don’t care if you only need a minute. It isn’t going to take a minute -it never does. More importantly when did your minute get more important than my minute??
Basic basic stuff. Red means no. When you see any other colours you can do anything you want to.When you see red with regards to road and traffic, it means no or stop. Or pull over we are going to be doing a breathalyzer.
Dropping off is simple. You drive up. Pull up close to the kerb where there is no red line.
Stop your car, put it in neutral, kick your offspring out the car.
He fumbles in the boot for his bag. He finally gets his shit together and as he walks past the passenger window he says something like “Bye mom” and every now and then I will scream out something like “I love you so much my boy — have a really lovely lovely day —- mommy loves you!!”
You know, anything to embarrass him. I like to keep it fresh so he never really knows what is coming. I like the fear in his eyes each morning.
I don’t do it every day — I save it for holidays and high days.
Anyway, yesterday — I drive up. (this happens almost every day, I am only blogging about it now, because though the diarrhea post I have is funnier, I am not going to put it up — I am trying to hold on to my dignity though it is a losing battle)
It’s a single road – so one lane up, one lane down, and the road has a right angle bend in it.
There is endless places you can drop your kid off without parking/stopping on the red line.
Sure, it means your butter ball might have to walk 20 meters, but you know I think they will live. These are high school kids, not infants — I think we can trust them to walk 20 meters without starting a meth lab, joining a cult or getting a tattoo.
I shit you not. One person in the up lane is parked/stopped on the red line whilst they are dropping off their overlord-and-master. Then there is another person in the down lane dropping off their own saviour-of-the-world, also parked/stopped on the red line.
The result is no one. NO. FUCKING. ONE. who is parked in the right place can go anywhere.
I am sitting in the middle of the road, whilst I am watching these shallow DNA pool swimmers dropping off their lucky sperm. Of course because they are kids (the ones going to the school not driving) they always take long, or drop something or what ever.
This is what kids do.
There the rest of us sit, and watch these two mother (literally) fuckers back up the entire road. In both directions. You know, because they just need a minute.
I try my very best to be patient with people, but fek me — even I have my limits.
I could totally understand if the drop off point was so congested you had to park 200km away.
Totally, got your back. Then you can put your stupid car anywhere. But no, there is actually a great deal of road without red lines. That is where the rest of us, with our the fruit or fruits of our loins/babies from various daddies/princes of Maine are stopping — if you looked up long enough from your self absorbed existence and noticed you might notice the mild irritation on our faces.
I know it is very hard to actually absorb your effect on other people when you are sitting next to the prince/princess/the chosen one. I get it — all that closeness to greatness can be a bit blinding.
Granted the PLEASE ONLY STOP HERE spots are not 20cm from the gate you want your little angel to walk through. I think they have legs for something or legs that work. Again, if you kid is in a wheel chair or in a full body brace I might go … okay maybe let’s let this one slide —- but then use the main gate, that has special parking parking for special people.
All these fuck-wits have to do is drive maybe 20 – 30 meters, and they could park/stop and the kids could get out, and we would not have to be involved in their dim little lives.
But no — “fuck that” they thought.
We will just put our cars right over here and now you, and you, and you, and especially you, can watch whilst our off spring gets out the car, unpacks their shit, drops their hockey/polo/beat a child to death stick — and then —- still has a chat with mom and dad….. at about this point I am losing touch with sanity.
Whilst we all sit here in contemplative silence thinking about ways to beat you to death with the wheel jack, or what ever we can find in our car on short notice.
I swear I was sitting there saying things that made Lil’ Wayne blush. He eventually stopped singing on the CD and said “yo-yo-yo bitch, yo man, yo man… coming down a bit hard on the fucks … just be chill like…..” (it’s my story I can tell it anyway I feel it happened — prove it didn’t happen that way I dare you)
When these things happen you always think you are alone in the universe.
This is happening to you and obviously everyone else is fine with it.
I was really saying some fairly unkind things.
I had violence and rage running at full tilt. This does not happen once — there is never one prick in the school having an emergency morning. There are dozens of them, all self entitled and assuming you can just sit back and wait whilst they ignore the rules and basically fuck up your day whilst you have to watch them be the fuck ups they woke up to be.
I aim my anger and rage mainly at the parent. At a certain point I start to go for the child.
If the parent/adult person is this stupid then my guess is there is going to be something inherited there. We —- yes we, this is a village issue people—- need to consider flushing out the DNA pool. As a group, to at least delay the low IQ apocalypse, or at the very least save some water.
In all of this, I had so much time to take in the scenery and all of that shit — well because I am sitting there waiting for Prince William to get himself organised and all.
I looked in my rear view mirror and there was a mom who had dropped her kid off NOT ON THE FUCKING RED LINE. She was going off, like OFF. Proper. Which made my going-off look like I had maybe dropped a spot of Nutella on my almost black jean pant, and it was a slight inconvenience as I dabbed it with my wet wipe.
This mom person was dressed for work, all neat and proper and she was going off like a lunatic. I think she was in Stage 5 of the use of the middle finger. I actually didn’t realise that fingers could do that — I couldn’t read her lips but I am almost sure she was using the word po#s there with reckless abandon.
I stopped ranting to watch her. She was that impressive. Even in the rear view mirror.
I do wish you and I could have spent more time together. I felt we were kindred spirits there for a little while. I heart you, who ever you are.
Finally these two fuckers drop their “reason for living off” move their respective cars and drive away. Allowing the rest of us to get on with our lives.
Yesterday like every day, I shrug it off and do not think about it again. Because what am I going to do? Change direction and follow them, and when they park their car go along and key the side of the car …. I mean I could. I could plan my mornings that way.
I have more flexibility on a Monday and a Friday, so lets just see how the week pans out.
I am trying to look at this and think that maybe someone else will take charge here. Get out of their car with a baseball bat and take care of one of these annoying vehicles. Taking a few swings at their front lights or their side mirrors. I can’t describe the joy that thought gives me.
My money is on the mom behind me yesterday. Chick, who ever you are, I am backing you in this episode of Mad Moms!! I will be your alibi if you need one.
This morning I am dropping Connor off – same thing I parked in the area without the red line. Child gets out of car with necessary luggage. Walks the required 12 steps and is in the school gate. Easy.
I accelerate, as you do. To move to the part of the road where I can drive. Away. To work.
But no – because some fucker mother (see what I did there?) has decided that the red line is a good place to sort of park/stop — that the rules do not apply to her and her liebchen.
She has actually beaten the odds and done red line and sort of middle of the road park/stop (it is not a very wide road). In one move she has fucked it up for everyone.
Close enough to the corner that the folks behind her have to sit and stare at her as well.
She isn’t even in a huge SUV. She is in a Paleo (or what ever) fucking smurf car — like how the fuck do you manage to take up so much space with that??
How is it possible? She beat the odds,. This stupid cow peaked in areas that I did not realise were even a competition to peak in.
Of course her fucking gifted daughter dropped something and then needed to leopard crawl under the car to get it. No worries we will just sit here as we watch our lives slip away from us. Be late for fucking everything because you didn’t use a condom 15 or 16 years a go!!!
I didn’t even curse this morning (yes I realise how unlikely that sounds — I think I had used up all up my fucks and fuck-me’s yesterday). I really just sat there with that look of amazement on my face and doing that thing.
That thing where you put your hands on the steering wheel, lift them up in awe with your palms still resting on the steering wheel, so you are sort of doing controlled jazz hands. Then you put the fingers down, grip the steering wheel so your knuckles go white — and keep repeating this movement as long as what ever is happening in front of you continues.
It’s the WTF sign with a steering wheel.
I am sure If this happens at all schools — because Fairmont High School surely cannot have the most clueless parents. They appear like such nice people when they are not in their cars.
Parents cannot be this self absorbed they do not notice they are impacting on the rest of the world, in their aim to do what ever they need to do for their offspring —- because their shit for brains is more important than mine.
Surely other schools have these parents too.
I do not have a solution. I have some more swear words though.
If YOU are a parent — if you are one of THESE parents at Fairmont High — then stop being an arsehole.
This is not an AA meeting. You do not need to introduce yourself and tell us you are an arsehole, and when your last arsehole action was.
We have watched you on the red line, because we can’t go anywhere. We know you are an arsehole.
BECAUSE YOU ARE PARKED/STOPPED ON THE FUCKING RED LINE even if it was only for a freaking minute!!!
We are asking you to recognise you are being an arsehole. Maybe if you admit it, seek some assistance and just don’t park or stop on the goddamn red line, then, well we can all be lekker again.
Just don’t be that MOFO ARSEHOLE who puts their time ahead of all of ours. Then blocks us in so we have to sit and stare at you — you do know your car has glass? We can see you, your stupid face and all that.
Don’t be a parking arsehole at school (we can deal with retail spaces another day) — it’s not cool and it’s not lekker. Just stop it. For the love of all things good.
Choose not to be an arsehole today. Come on, we are actually rooting for you to not be an arsehole — be a sunflower or a fucking rainbow, but not an arsehole.
Trolls and idiots ….. especially the ones named Hank …..
I have been blogging for several years.
I have been on social media for several more.
I am used to the usual on-line bullying, trolls arriving and basically taking a shit on your door step in a brown paper bag and generally say things that are painful and hurtful.
5 years ago I had what can only be described as a breakdown. I had various other things happening in my life that I was not coping with.
There were 3 “social media” things that had happened in quick succession.
One I caused using poor judgement at work, one I happened to just be standing there and got caught in the fall out of a non related incident, and one had nothing to do with me but it felt like it was aimed at me.
People hiding behind “usernames” and “gmail” addresses and the like, get terribly brave and feel very little in the way of any real interest in you as a person, the subject and the damage they do.
They sweep in under the cover of darkness, cause chaos, step away like arsonists and watch the building burn, without taking any responsibility because “I just commented ……” – they want the building to burn, for no other reason than they have one match and in many cases know how to get a fire going. Quickly.
I admit to saying stupid things sometimes – both in life and in the land of O’s and I’s.
I do hope that I learn from my errors, and when possible I apologise. I accept we are all jerks given the right circumstances – and that given a few hours or days to reflect we realise that. In time one hopes to be less of an arsehole than you are today, and each day get a bit less arsehole’ish.
That was 5 years ago – I have moved on a great deal from then. I am not totally immune to trolls and people who are idiots, but their effect on me is less and they no longer consume me.
I realise it is their shit, and not mine, and I do not have to take it on board.
I realise they are trolls. I realise their opinions, like arseholes, are things we are all entitled to one (sorry I know it is an old jab, but there we go) – before I would believe what they said, now I do tend to shrug it off for the most part.
They/Trolls/The Hanks in the world do not know me.
They have a perception of me, and their assumptions are just that — assumptions without much in the way of fact. {if you read this blog and assume everything here is fact, then I have a bridge for sale I would like to talk to you about}
Yesterday a gentleman named Hank left a comment and it vexed me.
Not because he commented, not because he sounded like a ball-less turd with no sense of humour and an unholy obsession with the speed of cakes flying around on the N1. He used ONE post from my blog to make a judgement about me and my parenting style. (even if he read all 1030 or how many ever there are, that still does not mean he knows me.)
Again Hank, I actually do not give a flying fuck about your opinion.
The blog post in question for the most part made it obvious who has children and is coping with similiar stuff, versus people who do not have children and think because they have testes and possibly access to ovaries this makes them experts on parenting.
But none of that matters.
What matters for me — is that YOU — who does not know me and who told me you do not read my blog – attacked my children.
Listen Hank, I am not quite sure of which corner of the shit heap that is this universe you crawled out from under, but there are many things you can do or say to a blogger/mom.
Insult me, accuse me of making bad judgments, not understand why the odd cake needs to be launched from a moving vehicle, and not grasp what it is like to fight with children over pieces of plastic.
I accept all of that from you with an open mind and to a large degree a bit of a shrug and a “ah well…. he is probably a bit of a c&nt”
Hank, I am on board with that.
If you want to be the biggest c&nty c*nt there is, then I support you in that. I am there for you mate, right behind you. I will wear “Hank is a C&nt” lapel pin if you need me to.
The part where you lost my respect (not that you ever had it, but I thought I would throw it in just so I appear classy and stylish) and you really stepped over the imaginary line that exists in the world, is the part where you deemed it was okay to comment about my children and who they are in this world.
You get that part – MY CHILDREN!!
Did you have CRACK for breakfast yesterday???
I wrote a very emotional post last night and posted it earlier, and decided to put it on “password protect” – if you know me, contact me and I will send you the password. I don’t think it is for general consumption.
I agree it is way to much venom to put straight out there and takes away from the fact that a fellow named Hank felt it was okay — O-FUCKING-KAY —– to come out and attack my children and refer to them as delinquents – potential delinquents.
Hank, I dare you – I dare you to come and find me in public and say that to my face.
I actually dare you, seeing as you appear to have balls as big as burgers, to walk up to any mom in Pick ‘n Pay or any other retailer and offer her advise, criticism and then insult her children whilst she is doing the best she can, in the best way she can.
You know nothing about what it is like to be a parent and cope —- even if you are a parent, parenting your children or child, does not make you an expert on some one else’s – no more than owning a car makes you a motoring journalist expert.
Last night I was at Pick ‘n Pay buying the odds and ends, my kids were at home. I watched a frazzled mom with two toddlers in her trolley going ape shit — like totally ape shit. She looked like she had just fought the gladiators, and then for shits and giggles had gone to pull the hair off a tiger’s arse on a dare.
This woman was exhausted and one “whine” way from a full fledged breakdown.
Her kids were screaming. Mental because she only had one #stikeez – she had clearly miscalculated and her bill was less than R300.00 so she got one #stikeez.
I got it. I stood there with my wagon of groceries and I wanted to go over to her and rub her shoulders, maybe play with her hair in a soothing manner and say “fuck I hope they go to sleep early” – but I didn’t.
I also did not judge her and I did not pull any low blows — because I get it. I fucking get it. I have been there, and most of the readers on this blog have been there – we fucking live there. Your kids screaming like banshees whilst everyone else’s children appear so well behaved it makes you want to throw up.
Instead Hank you hide behind your work, email address (troll error 101 —- are you a virgin at this, or do you usually leave your work IP details behind for bloggers to find you?) and give me parenting advise.
Insult me, insult my children, and for good measure insult the people who have read this blog and commented. Are you actually really and truly that much of a does?? I am overwhelmed by you. By the sheer level of does you have managed to squeeze into one shitty comment.
My children have been through a divorce, a death and several life changing events in the last two years. My kids are fucking awesome kids. I commented about that in the earlier post and here is what I added there:
Hank – after today I will not give you another thought. Though when I do, the fact that your name rhymes with Wank and your mom called you that, will make me smile a little childishly.
I do hope that even if you hate this blog, detest my tone and use of language and think my children are maladjusted little so-and-so’s you keep in mind, fuck with a blogger, go ahead, do that, in general we have skins that are fairly thick — but fuck with a mom’s children and you my friend make yourself out to be the biggest arsehole there is, and what ever else you might do or say is null and void.
I do hope that one day if you have the great fortune to become a parent, someone comes over to you, insults you, your wife, your child and your parenting style. To your face.
I do hope this happens to you, and you can reflect then as I hope you are now, that you my dear sir, are an arsehole of a proportion that I cannot even begin to fathom.
I do hope you never read this blog again.
I do hope that you live a long’ish life, but if you happened to die in a cake accident, I might not be too cut up about it.
My three kids and I are going to go off and skip down the hills singing that song “The Hills are alive with Music” —- I do hope you go and fuck yourself.
Yes, I said it. But it is because I care.
Posted by reluctantmom on August 18, 2015
https://reluctantmom.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/trolls-and-idiots-especially-the-ones-named-hank/