{"id":19945,"date":"2016-08-21T14:04:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T13:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=19945"},"modified":"2023-04-09T14:47:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-09T13:47:13","slug":"squalling-brats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=19945","title":{"rendered":"Squalling Brats"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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About a month ago I wrote about crap parents who can\u2019t (or won\u2019t) control their kids<\/a>, with the result that everyone else has to suffer. I mentioned how other crap parents rise up against anyone who objects, citing all manner of illnesses and disorders as possible causes of unruly behaviour, even though we all know that \u2013 in the vast majority of cases – it is just crap parenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coincidentally, I was driving between lessons yesterday when movement out of the corner of my eye at lights drew my attention to a passing bus, A woman was lifting a baby\/young child in the air \u2013 well, I say \u201cchild\u201d; actually it was just a huge mouth with tears squirting out of one end and legs dangling out of a nappy the other. I could just imagine the mega-decibel buzzsaw bawling everyone else was having to endure, and I remember thinking \u201cGod help anyone who is on that bus\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I saw this story on the BBC website<\/a>. When you strip it down, it\u2019s just another example of some dipshit who isn\u2019t in contact with reality ranting on Facebook and having it go viral as a result of huge support from a load of other dipshits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all starts with a flight from Ibiza to Manchester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine the situation. You\u2019ve had a nice holiday, but you\u2019re going home in the morning. It was\u00a0 a package tour, so your departure flight officially takes off at something like 5.30am. Your hotel or chalet is at least an hour away from the airport, and you\u2019ve been given strict instructions to be in the car park outside at 3am to board the bus to take you to there. You\u2019re in Ibiza and you\u2019re flying back to Manchester, so there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve had to put up with some teenaged yobs for the whole week. Naturally, they will have gone out last night and drunk more than they\u2019d done on any other night. Consequently, at 3am you\u2019ll be sitting on the bus going nowhere while the reps try to find them \u2013 at least one will be borderline comatose, and several will be puking up everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they eventually do<\/strong> arrive their mouths will be turned up to 11 (the usual yob setting is 9 even when they\u2019re being quiet). The reps will have faces like thunder \u2013 quite the opposite of their cheery bonhomie when you were freighted in last week, and you\u2019re now going to have to put up with the loud yobs all the way to the airport (and at the airport, and all the way home). Once you get there, you will have to wait until check-in begins and the couple of dozen seats \u2013 totally inadequate for the 200 people milling around at the best of times \u2013 will be taken up by a handful of sleeping backpackers. The floor will be covered in sleeping, puking, and screaming humanity, so you\u2019ll have to be careful not to tread on anyone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any cafes will be shut, even if your departure hub (i.e. shed) has any, and the vending machines will have been emptied by more yobs providing the traditional Coca Cola and crisps breakfast for their kids. When the check-in call finally comes, all the backpackers and yobs will somehow make it to the front of the queue. The check-in process will take over an hour instead of the usual 10 minutes because the Spanish authorities\u2019 approach to an increased terrorism threat is to use half as many people to do six times as much work. Once through, none of the duty free shops will be open so you\u2019ll have to kill the next 30 minutes watching the planes land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An hour later, and some 30 minutes after the time you were scheduled to take off, you\u2019ll suddenly realise your plane isn\u2019t even here yet. Eventually, you will casually watch it come in, land, taxi over, disgorge the new intake of holidaymakers and their luggage, get loaded up with your luggage, and refuel. Somewhere around 8am you\u2019ll flop into your seat, simultaneously smashing both buttocks on the arm rests as you do, and then spend a further 30 minutes being jostled by all the other passengers, who appear transfixed by the overhead storage compartments and that clunk-click noise they make, and block the gangway for everyone else instead of bloody sitting down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll finally take off, knowing that you have two and a half hours in the air plus any time for stop offs. Within five minutes you\u2019ll start to get cramp as a result of the non-existent leg room, and develop breathing problems as you sit with folded arms to try and keep out of the personal space of the person next to you, who is twice as wide as the seat they\u2019ve been given and who has no qualms at all about occupying both yours and their personal space all at the same time. If you\u2019re lucky, the pissed yobs from your hotel will burn out, and the need for an emergency diversion to the Galapagos will be avoided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first $64,000 question is this. After all of the above, if someone has a screaming kid which just will not shut up sitting immediately behind you, are you going to smile and ignore it, or get angrier and angrier inside?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second $64,000 question is: will you blow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, it would appear that on the flight referred to in the story, someone did<\/strong> get angry and blow \u2013 if \u201cblow\u201d is the right word to use. When bombarded with the incessant and painful noise coming from a screaming child on a cramped and lengthy journey back to Manchester, a female passenger in the seat immediately in front (from what I can gather) shouted \u201cshut that child up\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can absolutely sympathise with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we are in the Facebook age, and nothing is ever that simple. The mother has taken to social media to effectively blame the irate passenger for the behaviour of her<\/strong> child, saying that the kid was having \u201ca meltdown\u201d and that the comment \u201cdidn\u2019t help\u201d the child\u2019s anxiety levels. \u201cMeltdown\u201d and \u201canxiety levels\u201d are the favoured phrases of parents who can\u2019t control their offspring, even though it is they who usually created the environment for such behaviour in the first place. Another favoured ploy is to blame some sort of illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, the child apparently suffered from a rare condition called Sturge-Weber syndrome, and naturally her behaviour on the plane was \u2013 according to the mother\u2019s implied words \u2013 entirely and completely due to all the bad things that go along with that condition. The possibility that she was just acting up because of the early start and all the arseing around at 3am in Spain didn\u2019t enter into it. On the other hand, Sturge-Weber can have some nasty symptoms, though if these were genuinely the cause of any such behaviour you\u2019d have to ask why the child had been taken to Ibiza in the first place (she has a huge port-wine stain on her face, and my understanding is that you should avoid the sun if you have one), and why she\u2019d gone economy (where even a full-grown adult might feel like having \u201ca meltdown\u201d and suffer \u201canxiety\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, barring any law which forbids it, the child\u2019s parents had every right to take her to Ibiza in this manner. But then, other people \u2013 the majority, in fact \u2013 have rights too, one of which is to be able to sit quietly without someone else\u2019s kids bawling in your ear and ruining something you probably paid a lot of money for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it isn\u2019t as one-sided as the mother with her Facebook rant would like to think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n