Infant hell
Sometimes a man gets the urge to do something nice. The urge to make up for past transgressions and go along with whatever the rich ‘menu of the day’ has to offer. Sure, you may need your sleep and you may need to get back in time because otherwise you’l miss work and get a ranting from your boss for not having the correct ‘business attitude’ but that comes with the package.
I’m never doing anything nice ever again.
The premise was fairly innocent naturally (it always is). Accompany my mother and sister to a niece and celebrate her birthday. 2 hours there and back again so I’m on time for work at 2 in the afternoon (I work till 23.30 so don’t think I’m lazy). I was necessary for the driving bit of the plan since both my mother and sister seem to have a morbid fear of driving.
What I hadn’t taken into account when saying yes was of course the sheer family death trap I would be running into. 2 aunts, 1 neighbour, 3 people I’ve never seen before and a staggering number of 6 children, 4 of which were younger then 1 year. Holy crap. Emergency escapes were non existant. I was 20 miles from home, out of options, trapped.
Very young children in my experience are complete narcistic, selfish, uninterested little noise makers who start screaming the moment they receive no attention for what....3 seconds? Its amazing to see how they’re given a hug and can scream out even before the hug is over! The mindboggling part is how every parent falls for this and continues to give unnecessary attention right up to the point where the child falls asleep from sheer exhaustion. Screaming is hard work.
This makes conversation impossible. Each time in those 2 hours I sensed a topic I could slightly relate to (how things go at school or why George Bush is such an asshole) the talk could only last a little over half a minute before the screeching and whining would become unbeareable and everyone turned their attention to the infant who produced the sounds again saying such abominable things like ‘yes you’re cute’ or ‘are you a little hungry?’ No people, the things aren’t hungry, they’re desperate to get your attention for nothing but attention itself. Its almost like theres a little Bill O’Reilly in every infant. Just screaming out for attention, not caring abouts its audience or whoever is around at the time and producing nothing but incoherent blabbering bulshit. The universe resolves around ME ME ME!!! LOOK AT ME!! I’M CUTE!!
Babies at family birthdays: SUCKS