Thoughts to Ponder

Cars. Public streets. The right of the driver to, um, merrily park their car on a street.

A friend of mine was verbally abused today for daring park her car on a public street where there happened to be an adjacent house. I might add, there were no legal parking restrictions either.

The crime: for parking her car there and thus waking the resident baby. Also, she was apparently guilty of being a "dwarf c$#%". The lady in question is neither the latter word nor a dwarf.

Now I've raised a baby or two myself, including one who apparently thought (still thinks) that SLEEP KILLS!, and therefore should be avoided at all costs and for as long as possible. Amongst a fog of depression and insanity I can vaguely remember the sheer frustration of this typically-baby behaviour. I was probably capable of screaming abuse at a complete stranger, had I possessed the energy to get off the couch and draw breath.

But c'mon. Using an expression like that, at a complete stranger, who did nothing but park her car? The abovementioned screaming abuse... I'm sure I would have reserved it for a stranger who, say, honked her horn. Or revved her car while the muffler was missing. Or who belted on my front door and rang the doorbell repeatedly, barged in, and then shook the baby's bed until the kid woke up.

Personally (placing the inexcusable choice of words aside for a moment), I'm pointing the blame squarely at any parent whose kid is so sensitive to noise that they wake up from the sound of traffic. If you want your kid to sleep, don't get them depending on utter silence. I'm not suggesting you run a cement mixer full of bricks next to the baby's bed. But if the kid can't cope with an adult conversation in the living area... or say, a passing motorist... well then, good luck when they're 5 and can hear a 9pm movie on the tv that they'd like to watch.