A while ago a thread

 on an internet forum came up on what to do about a squalling baby. Answers ranged between strangle the infant to just get loaded on drugs and go to sleep.

Someone pointed out that they sell baby-sized alcoholic beverages for a reason. Good point.

Anyway I put my two cents in and I have to admit I have rethought my answer. Babies are babies and to tell the truth, the parents should likely travel in airplanes with babies as little as possible. I will admit sometimes it can not be helped.

Infants can't figure out how to relieve the pressure on their ears and as a result their ears hurt. There are many adults that also fall into this category but I'll save that for a later post.

When there is a squalling infant on a plane I look at the parents. I watch them carefully. If they are doing the best they can to calm the child they generally get a pass. They are doing the best they can with what they have to work with and that goes a long way with me.

It makes me happy to see parents that are parenting instead of being irresponsible.

Now for the other side of the story.

If I see the parents sitting there with headphones on ignoring the situation and letting the infant bawl then they ought to get slapped up alongside the head and reminded that they are responsible for their children.

If they are the kind of parents sitting there with a 'look at my precious little snowflake' look on their faces while the kid screams they ought to be reminded that last winter I shoveled billions of individual snowflakes out of my driveway and into the street to get flattened out by passing cars.

Not only are they being iresponsible, but they are being stupid. While you can't fix stupid, it ought to at least hurt.

This policy runs parallel to the policy of people that let their dogs crap on someone's lawn without cleaning up after them. When that happens it's BB gun time. 

You don't shoot the dog in the ass, you shoot the owner.


To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY