Let your children drown then!

[customersruinmylife]

My bar is next to a river, and customers are allowed to take their drinks and sit by the river, but we have two rules

Rule 1
Children are not allowed by the river. We are not insured in case something happened to them. People have ignored the rules and kids have fallen in before, we've had nothing serious, the river is quite small, but that's not the point, a child could easily drown.

Rule 2
Food is not allowed by the river. This is because of geese. Some customers leave their food lying around, and geese travel up towards the pub. I don't know if many people have had encounters with geese, but they are very volatile creatures. Customers that have snuck down to the river with food have been attacked before.

So, here is where the story begins.

Me = poor long suffering employee
SM = Sucky Man
SW = Insane Sucky Woman

A man walks up to me.

SM: Hi! I was just wondering, your sign that says "No food or children beyond this point", is that optional?
Me: Optional?
SM: Yeah, can we take our meals and kids down there anyway?
Me: No, I'm really sorry, we're not insured to have children down by the river...
SM: Oh dear.
Me: And, you're probably going to think this is funny, we're not allowed food down there because we've have incidents with customers being attacked by the geese!
SM: Oh! We don't want that do we? Haha!

The man walks away, and that was the end of the conversation.

About a minute later, an insane looking woman belts up to me, complete with pushchair and screaming child inside.

SW: WHY AREN'T WE ALLOWED TO GO TO THE RIVER WITH OUR CHILDREN??
Me: *Shocked* I'm sorry?
SW: YOU told my husband we are not allowed to enjoy our day by the river, WHY?
Me: I'm sorry, it is one of our policies.
SW: I DONT CARE! I WANT TO ENJOY THE DAY WITH MY CHILDREN BY THE RIVER!
Me:I'm afraid we can't allow that. We are not insured if something happens to them, and it is not only our policy, but it is a policy of the council.
SW: What are we going to do? It's a beautiful day! WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? SIT INSIDE?
Me: No. The children are quite welcome in the patio area, and you are also welcome to eat your meals up there.
SW: I WANT TO EAT BY THE RIVER!
Me: Well, I'm sorry, you can't.
SW: YOU HAVE RUINED OUR DAY! IT IS BEAUTIFUL OUTSIDE, AND WE WANT TO ENJOY IT! NOW WE CAN'T!

And she ran off, taking the screaming child with her.

[Shironu-Akaineko]

You have ruined my 5 minutes with your post about not enjoying my toddler near a body of water with geese in it! Rawrgh!

[blas]

Let them eat down there, and get attacked by geese. After one experience with those hellish, Satanic birds, they'll NEVER do it again.

Keep enforcing the no children rule, because that would NOT be funny, but let stupid SCs get attacked by geese.

[customersruinmylife]

Oh yeah definately. Anything happening to a child is horrible, especially through the negligance of a parent.

The geese thing is hilarious. I witnessed an incident in which customers were attacked. I warned them not to feed the geese, wind up the geese or even go near the geese, and yet, they were attacked by the geese. They somehow looked to me for protection.

Like I was going to go near a bunch of angry geese! Especially after I warned them!

[Erin]

One of my grandmother's older sisters was killed by a goose when she was three. When I was little and my grandmother would take me to the zoo, she would never let us near the geese that lived near the waterfall, and we would NEVER EVER go into the Aviary. Grandma hated geese.

(my grandma was born just before her sister died, and they renamed my grandmother after her older sister)

The story I was told was that grandma's sister was in the yard by their house and was walking around in the yard playing. One of the geese had gotten into a fight with another goose, and the birds ended up in the yard close to my great-aunt and she ended up getting pecked to death by one of the birds. Soon after that, my great-grandparents got rid of the flock of geese and just had chickens and ducks after that.

[karma_gypsy]

Chickens can be just as bad actually. One can't peck you to death, but they can peck an eye out.

Apparently when my husbands ex-wife was little, her parents had chickens and roosters. She was very little at the time, three or so and a rooster came up and pecked at her eye (she wasn't alone outside by herself or anything . . .). Luckily, it didn't affect her eye, it just hurt a lot. Unlucky for the rooster, it didn't survive much longer after that . . .

[IlovemyGeek]

I had no idea geese were so dangerous.

[rvdammit]

There's a reason many people consider guard geese are more evil than guard dogs.

[IlovemyGeek]

Ok, so when I am a bajillionaire...I will stock the moat of my impenatrable fortress with angry geese....that out to stop those pesky people who knock on my door. LOL

[chainedbarista]

geese are evil little monsters, so are swans, ironically. i've been attacked (as a child) by them and know to avoid those honking, belligerent beasts.

chickens are good for two things (ducks animal activist ragers):

eggs
eatin'

anything else is just clucking annoyance.

[InverseHellion]

And this boys and girls, is why geese are FOOD not something to be fed. Nothin' like a roast goose. Except possibly Turducken. But Goose is less of a hassle to make.

[DesignFox]

I got attacked by a goose when I was little....The goose was lucky to survive that encounter as my father came flying over, grabbed it by the neck, and hurled it in another direction... Damn bird never knew what hit it . (I don't advocate violence towards animals, but in this case..that bird got what was coming to it!)

I had to have been 2 or 3 because I can't really remember this, but my dad likes to tell the story every now and then.

Even after that, I happen to like watching the geese- but then, the two places I frequent for that, the geese aren't so nasty. I've fed the swans and geese out of my hand without incident. I've also learned how to read them from hanging around them so much. During feeding- always leave enough bread that if they get too pushy you can toss a bunch and scram!

[Becks]

And she ran off, taking the screaming child with her.

Maybe the child was screaming for having such a raving for a mother and a dumbass for a father...

[zzapp the witch]

My dad told me once that when I was very little (about 4 or 5) we were at the park and a goose came over and pecked my lil bro (2 or 3) and that I got there before my parents and clocked the goose as hard as I could a couple of times in the head.....

I still have a good right hook.

[Tria]

chickens are good for two things (ducks animal activist ragers):

eggs
eatin'

anything else is just clucking annoyance.

I'm a proud member of PETA! (People for the Eating of Tasty Animals)