For Sky Wizard's sake, SHUT THAT KID UP!!!

[ZedOmega]

Last-minute Christmas shopping. And now that we got that bit of scene painted in everyone's minds (and what I wouldn't give for a chainsaw)...

My girlfriend and I are at the Mart of Walton because thanks to a lot of unexpected problems popping up, we're so far behind on our Christmas shopping that I was debating whether or not to suggest pushing our own back to January just to avoid the crowds. Finding the presents was one thing (she's still trying to find a gift for a friend of hers; I found a game that Mom would love and got it right then and there), but getting out of the place? Heh. Heheheh... Screaming kids in every direction but overhead. And it wasn't the usual tantrum screaming, this was at the level of 'mommy, I stubbed my toe'.

One little girl in particular definitely stuck in my mind, and I'll probably be hearing that wail in my nightmares for the next couple of days. It was loud enough for us to hear from the electronics department while they were walking into the store. And we passed them on our way out. Sweetums was being carried back out of the store by (what I'm guessing was) her father, screaming constantly. I mean, 'Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, quick breath, waaaaaaaaaaaa.' And somehow, she broke loose at one point. We saw the kid run past us, still wailing her head off, followed a few yards behind by her father, who had a look on his face like he thought it was the most fun thing in the world.

I don't know if Daddy caught up with his kid at any point, because we left right after that. I'm going to tell you guys, though, that my Christmas list has been officially appended to include earplugs for the next time I have to set foot in that place...

[EvilEmpryss]

We saw the kid run past us, still wailing her head off, followed a few yards behind by her father, who had a look on his face like he thought it was the most fun thing in the world.

No, no, no. What he was thinking was that getting her outside and away from witnesses so he could strangle little snookums* would be the funnest thing in the world.

*Please note: Neither EvilE nor any of Her subsidiaries condones actually strangling children, no matter how much fun it may be to envision it in some cases.

[PepperElf]

perhaps you'll want to be wearing this along with the earplugs.
though i can't guarantee it'll stop the screaming, it may make it a little more interesting at least...




(well you did say you wanted a chainsaw. i'm just tossing in a free boomstick )

[Merriweather]

There definitely do seem to be moer screaming children around than usual this time of year. Maybe more sugar, more stressed out parents, more interruptions in normal routine and late bedtimes, who knows, but wow.

Was out at a discount department store the other night, a little girl (old enough to be just about past the tantrum stage) in the buggy screaming her lungs out, you could hear her the entire width of the store. What was the mom doing? Just walking along talking to her friend, doing absolutely nothing to even atempt to lower the decible level, let alone stop it.

On the other hand, same store, about a week ago, similar situation, overheard the mother calmly saying in a firm but not loud voice "That is NOT acceptable behavior, and it will definitely not get you what you want", repeated a few times til it got thru. Wow. Parenting. What a concept.

[Ironclad Alibi]

I do not like screaming children, but do have a sort of tolerance for them. Maybe it's because my hearing is getting worse, or some other age thing. But I have not heard any kid screaming as bad as one I heard back in the early 70s. Don't highlight below if you're squeamish.

I was shopping in a department store when a small kid got his foot caught in the side of the escalator steps. That was one horrible scream, and I was across the store from it. It is still a very unpleasant memory.

[greek_jester]

I do not like screaming children, but do have a sort of tolerance for them. Maybe it's because my hearing is getting worse, or some other age thing. But I have not heard any kid screaming as bad as one I heard back in the early 70s. Don't highlight below if you're squeamish.

Poor little sod Those things are evil. I've nearly lost fingernails or gloves to them a few times.

[Seshat]

I do not like screaming children, but do have a sort of tolerance for them. Maybe it's because my hearing is getting worse, or some other age thing. But I have not heard any kid screaming as bad as one I heard back in the early 70s. Don't highlight below if you're squeamish.

I don't mind screaming children - or screaming adults - when there's genuine injury involved. Oh, it's unpleasant as hell! But it's sort of rigged into us to scream as a result of injury. Besides, it lets the kind of person who runs toward a scream know that there's a person in real trouble.

Tantrum screaming or screaming-just-for-fun bothers me, though.

[Pagan]

I went out and about yesterday. Including the mall. I'm really done with my shopping and was just picking up a few things that I had been waffling on. It's fun to watch the panicked, crazed people at stores.

One of my stops was Volde-mart to do my grocery shopping, but that was about 9am, when everybody else around here was still in church. No screaming children there. Really no screaming children at the mall or Best Buy, either.

Guess where I found the screaming children? Barnes & Noble of all places. There were about half a dozen in the 30 minutes I was in there.

I don't mind screaming children - or screaming adults - when there's genuine injury involved. Oh, it's unpleasant as hell! But it's sort of rigged into us to scream as a result of injury. Besides, it lets the kind of person who runs toward a scream know that there's a person in real trouble.

Tantrum screaming or screaming-just-for-fun bothers me, though.

Exactly.

The standard excuse seems to be that the "parents" tune it out after being around it constantly. That's fine and dandy when you're at home. However, it would be nice if they could remember that when they are out in public, not everyone else has children that do this.

I've never liked screaming children to begin with (unless they're truly in pain), but I've gotten less tolerant of loud noise in general in the last few years. Maybe it's all those years of having to put up with noise working retail.

[MoonCat]

I hate screaming kids. Or screaming adults for that matter. It's getting harder and harder to get away from constant noise.

And screaming for the hell of it just makes it less likely that anyone will pay attention to you when you really need to scream.

[XCashier]

And screaming for the hell of it just makes it less likely that anyone will pay attention to you when you really need to scream.

Precisely. Apparently, nobody remembers the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf...

[SuperRTL]

My kiddo tried one tantrum. One. We were almost finished with our shopping and he pulled it in the checkout line. I pulled him out of line and we walked around the store putting everything back right where we'd found it. He stopped screaming the minute I told him to and was apologizing by the time we were done. His sister, 3 months old, was fussing in the store the other day and he told her "No, Panda*, don't fuss in the store or mama will have to put everything back."

I laughed and hugged him and told her she was tired and didn't know any better and we'd finish quick so we could go take care of her. She was asleep on my shoulder by the time we got through the checkout.

There were multiple other kids doing the screaming fits and, I swear I saw devil horns sprout up on my kiddo, because he said, pretty loudly, "They're awfully big to be acting like babies, Mom. Even Panda does cry that much."

[wolfie]

Poor little sod Those things are evil. I've nearly lost fingernails or gloves to them a few times.

Just be glad that you lost gloves, rather than beingdegloved. Note to the squeamish - don't click the link.

Tantrum screaming or screaming-just-for-fun bothers me, though.

I've heard about one case of screaming-just-for-fun that wasn't sucky. It happened at the Exploratorium in San Fransisco, where one of the exhibits was a microphone hooked up to an oscilloscope, so you could see the sound waves from speech. There was a horrible, loud, "I'm being tortured to death" type of scream, and the staff rushed to the scene. It turned out that a deaf child had been playing with this exhibit, and found that if he did something while breathing out, the line would move. If he did it harder, the line would move further. Since he was deaf, he didn't realize that his actions were resulting in a loud noise.

[Misanthropical]

My daughter has and still does behave herself for the most part. However, when she was three I had refused to buy her a candy she wanted and she had the mother of all tantrums which resulted in us leaving the store with nothing and her getting a smack on the butt and told how unacceptable and unnecessary that was.

That tantrum resulted in her gaining the nickname of "monster" which she only allows me to call her even though she doesn't remember the tantrum or so she says.

I have very little tolerance for screaming children and have been known to leave a store with nothing because the parents were doing nothing to stop the screaming and all that screaming has been known to cause me to have a migraine.

Now, if the child is in pain, that is a different story and I have all the sympathy in the world for the child and hope that the child is okay.

[MadMike]

Tantrum screaming or screaming-just-for-fun bothers me, though.

I had one of those "screaming just for fun" brats in my line when I was running register once. I'll admit that back then, back before I had kids of my own, I had very little tolerence for screaming, and thought that parents could just magically "shut that damn kid up." Now that I've been there myself, I know it's not that easy.

That being said, I still don't like it when the parents don't even try to do anything, or worse yet, encourage them, like what happened in my line once. The kid was sitting in the cart, and every so often he'd just scream as loud as he could, with a slight grin on his face. And his stupid mother would just smile at him and ask him, "Can you do that any louder?" And of course, he could and did.

[PepperElf]

No, no, no. What he was thinking was that getting her outside and away from witnesses so he could strangle little snookums* would be the funnest thing in the world.

*Please note: Neither EvilE nor any of Her subsidiaries condones actually strangling children, no matter how much fun it may be to envision it in some cases.

heh. ya, but sometimes it's fun to let your imagination play in your head for a few minutes before putting it away and locking the toy chest.