My friends kids-in theory I like them. But, they are still in the stage where they have no real empathy and it is all about them. Luckily, I am not the parent,so I just find their attempts to manipulate the world kind of funny.

Nothing infuriates me more about kids than whining. Not even the sociopathic gleam in their eye when they deliberately do something bad and grin at you.

They're probably not always assholes, just not finished yet.But that doesn't mean you have to find it amusing when they do dickish things.(when my half=brother Adam was little, and would act up when we were all out together, stepmonster would blame me...that's mean, right?) Considering I didn't give the kid a sharpie& kazoo and a cup of coffee...maybe I should have, we're all estranged anyway!

My go-to with whining is to announce with cheerfulness as soon as it starts that I actually can't hear whining. So, any time it starts, a couple of "What? Did you say something?" ends it quickly.

OMG, so much whining and yelling.

As I parent I couldn't have dealt with that either. When the boys were young we had the retail computer store and they were at the store when not in daycare or school. They always knew that a certain behavior was expected. They didn't really have to go to extremes to get attention either since they were always around so many adults.

Don't get me wrong as they are still assholes, just not unruly ones. The extreme neediness time was pretty short as they seemed to be born independent. The first couple years when I was nursing and they slept with us was of course super needy, but I think they were over it pretty soon thereafter.

The crazy making stuff for me was the constant second guessing decisions. Which school, and stuff like that. The complete lack of gratitude or appreciation for everything and anything done for them gets old too.

Still lived through it so far. It never ends. I think they turned out to be decent humans, although I suspect they will make me crazy into my old age. I still make my mom crazy at 60 so it seems only fair.

I had a huge debate with one of my brainiac elderly friends when I told him that I was trying to have children. He was furious with me because he felt DH and I were wasting out brains and talents with such time consuming matters. Ruining our lives. At 80 yo my son was the first baby he ever held when he came to the hospital to see me. My only point he accepted was that it wasn't a good plan for evolution if only the uneducated and poor had kids.

He was right in many ways. There was little time for adult socializing for quite a number of years. Certainly not the energy for the same level of career devotion either. But I didn't get into the family making business until near 40 so I had plenty of time to accomplish great things if that had been my destiny. And done with it now if I decide to do so in the future.

So, any time it starts, a couple of "What? Did you say something?"

Absolutely. They figure that stuff out. My nephew threw himself into full tantrum mode in my car when I declined his suggestion that I pull into MacDonalds for fries. I looked at him sideways and advised him that that didn't work with me. He never tried it again.

Lately I've been seeing more parents with kids in the store and a lot of times I feel for the kids. The parents just have unrealistic expectations, granted kids should be able to be in a store where and not be rowdy but it's hotter in the computer department than it is in the front of the store.

At this point almost everyone else has a long sleeve shirt on under their polor or is wearing a jacket/sweater or work sweatshirt and in some cases a combination.

Back in computers we're all in short sleeve shirts and it's comfortable. So parents and kids come in and are bundled up, sometimes the kids are in the stroller so they are little. If it's any kind of buying a computer/researching buying a computer transation it takes awhile. The parents jackets and coats and hats and gloves come off, but generally the kids don't, either they aren't old enough to do it themselves OR their parents don't want them out of fear of something being lost or jackets being slung around like weapons.

So you have kids who are too hot, ususally tired, bored out of their minds, told over and over "don't touch" and I'm not surprised when they start to whine or get fidgety.

Or we'll have paretns who underestimate how long something is going to take. I had a customer come in with her two kids, still in their school uniforms and it was after 6, at the start she mentioned to them when she was done they'd get dinner. So I assumed they hadn't been home yet. The kids were 8 and 12 I think - lots of "don't leave my sight, don't touch, don't break anything." Mom came in with questions about Chromebooks. Then questions about regular laptops. Then she had 2 scenarios and then she had more questions and she kept saying "I have one more question" or "We'll leave when after I finishw it this questin"( directed at the kids) and it was NEVER a simple question. At the end she had FOUR possible scenarios with maybe a Fifth that she wanted me to make recommendations for with all necessary accessories and possibly a Fifth scenario. But she didn't have a budget.

And this was about a half hour after she came in. I finally wrote down some very general recommendations, suggested she firm up her budget with her husband and maybe do so more research. Our conversation kept getting interupted with her looking around to get an eye on her kids and going into the "Don't touch, stay where I can see you, put your jacket back on. I know you're hungry, we're leaving in a few minutes."

When she finally left it was close to 7. At one point I wanted to say "Stop telling your kids you guys are going to leave in a few minutes that's not true! Or at least let them go over in the gaming section and play on the Nintendo" But I didn't because it's not my place and the Nintendo is out of line of sight.

I felt so bad for those kids. I don't know what time they went to school but it's obvious it's been a long day, they wanted to eat and were bored and I could see the relief when the mom kept saying they'd be done soon and then the frustration when that didn't happen.

There are some kids who are just obnoxious and throw fits, but they are a lot of adults who throw epic shit fits for no reason. Or there is a reason and or their reason is their completely unrealistic expections about how stuff works.

All true, askye. Obnoxious kids have an excuse: they're kids! Most of the time when kids are being obnoxious in public, it's because they're bored/tired/hungry and they haven't learned how to cope with that yet. Obnoxious adults, no excuse.

Had breakfast at Denny's before heading up to work. It would have been nice to share it with Hubby, but I realized that many of the things I'm doing t5hat I want to share with him are things I wouldn't be doing if he were here. A strange dichotomy.

Pinup pictures, yay (I think in Firefox you can click them and they should zoom somewhat):

Darn, I dropped the eggs! (This is Tim's favorite.)

Here, have a casserole. (And my boobs.)

How do you use this thing?

I always read on the stove, don't you? (This one is my favorite.)

Hey, a globe.

I'm much more comfortable teaching from down here.

And finally, my secret favorite, because of the look on my face (seriously, I have no idea why they picked this one to retouch, but I cannot stop laughing at it) I will kill you with this apple if you cross me, motherfucker.