Every public place I go to I have to avoid stomping on someone’s stupid child that gets in my way (or accidentally elbowing them in the head, or running them over, or whatever). For example, today in the grocery store, a fat child races past me and stops exactly in front of where I was walking. Annoying, but I can deal with it. I assumed he would grab some milk (which he did) and then walk away (which he did NOT). His fat sister soon followed, running past me, and stopped when she reached her brother. They began arguing over the milk, playing tug of war with it in the middle of the aisle. They made no indication that they were going to move out of my way. I couldn’t go around them because the line for the checkout was too close to where they were. “Excuse me,” I said loudly and sternly. They did not even acknowledge they heard me (and yes, I’m sure they weren’t deaf – they were talking to each other). At this point, I am FUMING. At the exact second I am ready to yell “GET OUT OF MY WAY!”, the checkout line moves forward enough for me to go around and I do. Just as I am walking away, I hear the parent talk to the children behind me (nothing like “You need to get out of the way,” but something completely unrelated). I consider turning back around and screaming at the parent to keep their kids out of my way (I wasn’t going to word it so kindly…) but I move along.

I am still furious about this. And it’s not just this one time at this one place. I have decided that I am just going to start telling the parents of these stupid children exactly what I think of their kids. So, parents of the universe, this is your warning. If your kid gets in my way, I am going to yell and swear at it and at you. I am seriously tired of dealing with it.

I mean, come on, when I went to Vegas over spring break I had to dodge people’s stupid kids who were running wild down the strip. In VEGAS? Seriously? What is your child even doing in Vegas? If I were to go a house where a kid lives, or to Chuck E Cheese, or to an elementary school playground at recess (or any playground for that matter), or something like that, I will be tolerant of children running around everywhere. But out in the real world, in normal society, it is just unacceptable.

I don’t care that I’m not a parent so I don’t know what it’s like to try to control a child. It doesn’t really matter if I could or couldn’t do it because I’m never going to put myself in that situation. And I do know that whenever we were out in public as kids, my mom would make us hold the shopping cart, or hold her hand, or something. We didn’t lawlessly run throughout creation. And if my mom can do it as a single mom with 5 kids, then so can these other stupid parents that allow their children to be in my way with no repercussions.

Seriously, though, angry Angela is about to be set loose on the irresponsible parents of the world. And I don’t want to sound like a crazy person (although I’m sure that’s exactly how I sound in this blog entry), and I’m not saying every child and every parent is like this, so please don’t automatically take offense just because you may have kids or really like kids or whatever. I’m just saying there are too many kids in my way and too many parents in the world that let it happen, so for THAT set of parents&children, I am about to become your worst nightmare.

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In completely other news, the teaching assignments/schedule was released last week for Fall 2011 and I will be teaching my very own class. Pretty exciting! No more TAing; I now get all the control, and responsibility, and stress, and perks, and disadvantages of my own class. I am looking forward to it. I think I am going to use planning the course as what I do when I need a study break this summer, but still want to be productive. (In August I am taking the qualifying exam in algebra; I can’t remember if I mentioned that. It is one of two extremely difficult exams I must pass in order to actually qualify to receive a PhD. So it is very important, and very stressful. I’ll be spending most of the summer living and breathing algebra. Yay!)