As easy as stealing money from a child
The other night, when I lost the will to cook, I hotfooted it to my local burger joint for a bacon and blue cheese special. On entering the tiny shop I found it filled with an assortment of about eight dishevelled young boys. These were not your usual dishevelled young boys, however. No, these were the finest, free range, middle-class, tousled-headed, plummy young boys one could imagine. They and their Boden-catalogue clothes were clobbered in muck and they were accompanied by their fathers - three in total - in their designer organic outdoor gear and their expressive/reflexive approach to parenting.

"I WANT a STRAW," brayed one youngling, a cry soon echoed by five others.

They began to scuffle - not that there was room to scuffle. Their fathers watched them with amusement. I watched them with a view to kicking any of them that so much as brushed against my shoe.

"Can I have a stick? I WANT a STICK! Why can't I have a stick? Daddy! Daddy the burger man won't give me a stick!"

I prayed for a stick larger than a coffee stirrer to reach my hands.

Just then I looked down and - lo and behold - saw not a big stick but a fiver on the floor. Presuming the customers who had arrived just after me had dropped it as they paid, I picked it up and handed it to them. They politely thanked me.

After an intolerable twenty minutes the army of children's burgers arrived. "Daddy! This isn't Heinz! I don't WANT this ketchup!". Daddy fussed over them for a moment and berated the burger man for his generic ketchup.

Small child number four piped up: "Daddy! The burger man has STOLEN my FIVE POUNDS!"

Oooh, this could get interesting. Burger man looked both pissed off and weary. He said nothing. The child continued his wail. "Daddy! He STOLE my money! My five pounds!"

The customers behind me shifted uncomfortably but said nothing. I said nothing. If I'd had my way they'd have paid us to put up with their crap for twenty minutes.

I was saved from further moral dilemma by the arrival of my burger. As I tried to edge past the mannerless little darlings I heard one of the fathers say, "I'm sure one of your friends took it as a joke, Henry." I had to utter "Excuse me, please," four times with increasing volume before they unclogged the door en route to their people carriers.

So yes, I found some money. More importantly, I found a sense of righteousness and justice against smug middle-class parenting.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 12:48, 6 replies)

If only
you'd found a reason to give one of the little buggers a swift and painful meeting with your foot.
( Moey, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 13:09, closed)

I find
the best way to make them move is to stand, as firmly as possible, on the backs of their heels. They only ever get one "excuse me, please" before I introduce them to my friend 'pain'.
(TheWeeWitch hasn't been here much recently .., Mon 10 Nov 2008, 15:08, closed)

When one is stuck on the wrong side of a crowd of heifers,
a quick poke in the ribs is more than enough to make all but the fattest of fatties scoot out of ones way. Also has the added bonus of a TASERed-esque jump if the poking finger is bony enough.

But yeah, frickin' useless parents and their snotty kids.. I don't care if little Jocasta has just learned the violin, or if baby Humphrey is reading at a college level; get thee back to yon gated estates and get to fuck!
(blueberrypossum wants to Jaffa your Cake, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 15:31, closed)

I can't help but think
you brought this on yourself by frequenting a take away that sells blue cheese and bacon burgers, tasty as I'm sure they are.
(Cock it says kapow!, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:38, closed)

in my defence
I was at least two miles from the nearest Burger King.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 16:47, closed)

This court finds you guilty of being a cunt on all counts
you are hereby fined five pounds.

*bangs gavel*
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Mon 10 Nov 2008, 18:08, closed)