Thursday, April 20, 2006

Pet Peeves

I'm empty today -- no words of wisdom or blathering about writing. I could opt not to post, but what fun would that be?

Instead, I'm going to share a few things that make me crazy (see title of blog -- you've been warned).

Yesterday at WalMart, an employee asked if she could go ahead of me in line because she was due to work in five minutes (and yet, after taking about that much time to check out, she still had seven... huh. I guess time runs backward at WalMart. A good thing to know.) and wanted to eat.

She had a bottle of Coke and a KitKat bar. She proceeded to pay with her food stamps card. Um... Coke and Candy aren't food.

This boils down to my pet peeve: people with food stamps using MY tax dollars are eating better than me. They're the ones in line ahead of me eating the best meat, prepackaged foods and junk (not that it's a bad thing that I don't typically buy junk food...). And they almost always reek of cigarette smoke -- if they can afford cigarettes ($3 a pack!! Holy cow!), why can't they afford to buy their own food?

I think that food stamps should only be used for unprocessed, fresh food: veggies, meats, milk, fruit, etc. No Junk Allowed.

Okay, done venting about that.

Now...

Kids.

Hey, I have one of my own. But I have never let her run wild in public. I was at a store on Tuesday when I heard this strange noise. I thought there was a toy or something that made it (growling and yelling). Nope. It was a kid, running around with his brother like the aisles were their personal playground.

And, I understand that young children throw fits at inopportune moments (like two-thirds of the way through the grocery store when you have too much invested to turn back). Prepare, people. I had a friend who fed her son non-stop through the store. With his mouth full, he was pretty quiet.

And, what about the people whose kids wander away and the parent doesn't even seem to notice? I was in Target a few weeks back wandering down the middle and saw this little girl, about two-years-old walking all by herself, no parent in sight. I asked her, "Did you lose your mommy?" She nodded, thumb in mouth. I started peering down aisles trying to find mom (didn't touch this child, however, something that will be addressed shortly). I finally discovered the woman, on her cell phone about three aisles away walking in the opposite direction of her child. And this kid was actually pretty close to the doors... anyone could have snatched her and ran. Grrrr....

Check out This Article entitled: Did Pedophilia Hysteria Cause Child's Death?

When the day comes that people are afraid to HELP children because they'll get in trouble for it, then the world is coming to an end.

Okay.

All done.

I'll keep the rest inside.

Well, except maybe the The Candadian Seal Hunt. I think it takes a really warped human being to club a baby seal to death, let alone 300,000 of them. Almost half a million babies. Geez.

Okay, now I'm finished.

2 comments:

Judy said...

I had not read the case of the man in England nor the case of the man who grabbed the fourteen-year-old, but I'm not surprised. Before I left work to write full-time, I was a preschool teacher/director for several years. It never happened in the centers I worked at (Thank God!) but I DID hear of reports of centers where the teachers were not allowed to hold and hug a child that was crying or had gotten hurt. They could stand near them and offer "words of comfort" but these poor little kids could not even get hugged while they were at school. What kind of adults are we raising when there are kids who can't be cuddled when they are sad or hurt???

Ceri Hebert said...

When I started reading your Walmart pet peeve I thought "Uh-oh... I was at Walmart yesterday..." The Amherst Walmart. But I hear you on the food stamp thing. Why in the world are they allowed to buy that stuff with foodstamps?

And the mom with a cell phone? She should be fined. A simalar thing was witnessed by a friend who was a a convenience store when a woman with a cell phone glued to her head was getting gas and sent her daughter (maybe 8 years old) into the store. The woman didn't stop talking on the phone the entire time and actually DROVE AWAY WITHOUT HER DAUGHTER!! What phone conversation could possibly be THAT important. My friend was at the store for a good ten minutes and the mother hadn't returned. He had to leave so he doesn't know how long that poor little girl waited.

What a world!!