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February 09, 2003
Don't Eat the Baby
I was in the grocery store yesterday, on a very busy Saturday afternoon in an extremely large urban store where people are bumping their carts into you as you try to squeeze through the aisles. I was standing among the tall refrigerated shelves, trying to find something to make for dinner, when this old man mutters to himself: "Oh, SHUT UP ALREADY!", and then to me: "Is there anything worse than a baby crying?" as he looked disgustingly down the aisle and the offender. I hadn't even noticed the noise, as it's easy to block things out when you're concentrating on raw chicken laid out in styrofoam trays wrapped in plastic. (I am usually thinking about how unappetizing it looks, what kind of horrible life the creature had before it was killed, do I really want to eat chicken? etc..)
So, having snapped out of my poultry trance, I looked up at the man, then at the baby crying. As far as babies crying it wasn't really so bad, he was contained inside his cart, both parents seemed to be attending, he hadn’t hit full screaming mode yet. I looked back at the man and said "Well, its not like life gets any better, might as well cry like that when you have the chance." I'm sure he wasn't expecting that response. I'm not sure he understood me, as the statement didn’t really make too much sense. So I want to clarify now.
Whenever I see and hear a baby crying, I stop and look at it. It's so obvious how horrible and uncomfortable and miserable it feels, I can't help but feel bad for it. I empathize, at times I feel just like that. I see a kid screaming, balling his eyes out, and I can't help but feel that I wish I could do that too. Just scream and cry and throw a fit. But of course I'm older and I know it doesn’t work. I want to tell the kid to carry on, scream and cry and let it all out, feeling terrible doesn’t change as you get older, you just learn not to let other people know how you feel. They will just tell you to SHUT UP.
The strangest thing about me, that I can still surprise myself. Crying babies do not annoy me. What does annoy me is people with little patience for a child's misery.
Posted by shannon at February 9, 2003 01:28 PM