75ZT Community

... I like to watch people. Nothing untoward, you understand. It just fascinates me watching how people tick.

Today's observation:-

SWMBO and I were out for lunch and, two tables away, was a pair of young women with a baby in a buggy. They were both chatting animatedly and the baby was dozing happily. Notwithstanding the fact that I found it extraordinary that they could stretch so much banality into such a long period of continuous chatter, eventually, they ground to a halt and, with their attentions unfocussed, they both began looking somewhat distractedly around them.

Eventually, one of them, presumably the infant's parent, began prodding and poking the child, eliciting, unsurprisingly, the angry grunts and squeals concomitant on such provocation. Left momentarily, to it's own devices, the baby sank once more into a somnolent, peaceful, quiet state. Unfortunately, the child's tormentor had other ideas and re-occupied her time with various prods and pokes and overly robust adjustments of the bedding in the buggy, again eliciting the expected response.

However, this time the woman chose to continue until the baby was so angry that he let the whole restaurant know about it in the usual manner. At which, the woman, with a resigned shrug, and a theatrically elaborate sigh, picked the infant up and, with a beaming smile, said to all and sundry:-

"Ahh... he's tired" (OF COURSE HE'S EFFING TIRED. HE WAS PEACEFULLY DOZING AND YOU ANNOYED THE LITTLE BLIGHTER UNTIL HE WAS UNABLE TO SLEEP) and proceeded to bounce the baby so heavily on her knee that the poor little blighter seemed unable to gain sufficient breath both to scream his lungs out and to breathe at the same time, his face taking on that angry red colour so often seen in children of this age who are distressed.

This, of course, engaged the attention of the other young woman who proceeded to exacerbate the situation by prodding the infant in the abdomen and making goo goo gah gah noises right in the poor little sod's face.

Oh, and as a serendipitous adjunct, all the other diners in the restaurant were now as disturbed and annoyed as the poor kid.

Surely, if those two women were that vacuous, shouldn't they have brought along their respective "Janet and John" books to keep them engaged?

...total lack of consideration for the other diners...


Cheers

Mike

It always amazes me how some parents think that everyone else should be happy to put up with their children creating havoc and in this case essentially the parent.

What amazed me was the way she deliberately irritated the baby because she was, essentially, bored.