You're not the only person/people on the planet. Photo via Robin Utracik.

Who me? Couldn’t be!

The next time some large family decides that the most ideal location to call a family meeting, chit-chat about future plans while going into extended pause to discuss the days highs and lows, coupled with mixed confusion and rigid inability to walk or move  happens at the entrance or exit of a large, highly trafficked area…like, I dunno, Target or a grocery store, rec center or my personal favorite, the neighborhood fair, please!…after purchasing one of these, go up to oblivious pedestrian blockers and blow this in their ears until their eardrums ooze out puss and bleed.

I’m talking about the a-holes who cock block those trying to enter or leave a public place because they lack any modicum of self-awareness.

Just last week, at my younger sons basketball game, a game was going on and standing on the sidelines were no other than TWO families and friends, completely unaware of anybody but themselves, blocking passage for any spectator wishing to gain entry to watch the game. Even with people standing there, waiting for the cock blockers to get a clue, their children just stared at the unamused, goal oriented, silently pleading patrons. It never dawned on them to tell their parents, “Hey old-farty Parental-Units – News-Flash! – GOOTFW!”

Have people always been so self absorbed and moronic that they fail to notice that they’re setting up shop and settling in for the evening smack in the middle of high trafficked areas?

There seems to be a growing trend of lack of self-awareness amongst people and I can’t quite put my finger on what to accredit it to. Is it the ‘me’ generation? Laziness? Or just good ol’ fashion stupidity?

Continuing on with my ‘lack of self-awareness’ rant, the epitome of this human injustice are those parents who take their own version of ‘19 Kids and Counting‘ on the road to grocery shop! As if the grocery store were their private playground, filled with learning moments, free occupational therapy and sweet tasting distractions. But I’m on to you. I’m on to you big time. I believe parents take their entire, extended families to the grocery store for free recreation. A chore that has to be done, so why not kill two birds with one stone and tire out the little bastards so they can watch ‘Spartacus‘ when they get home.

For parents who take their young kids to the grocery store, I have a really good reason for you not to take your 19 screaming kids to the grocery store — YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!

Your kids really don’t enjoy the grocery store and neither does anybody else. It’s rude to other patrons who need to get their shit and get out. It’s rude to the organized shopper with a list who has to wait while aisle 6 gets cleaned up because some snotty kid threw a shit-fit and dropped a jar of spaghetti sauce on the floor. It’s rude because your kids are miserable and screaming.

If I wanted to listen to that, I would have just stayed home.

It’s rude because your teaching moment, “No Sara, you can’t have that, it’s icky junk food”, shouldn’t have to be others disciplinary burden to share in. It’s rude because people have to wait while your kids zig-zag up and down the aisles. It’s rude because you so callously and flippantly waste other people’s time because you are utterly UN-SELF-AWARE.

And because you’re so not aware of yourself, you are now passing that obnoxious, discourteous behavior onto your bratty kids.

Parents. Please. For the sake of humanity and survival of our species, lead by example and teach your kids how to become self-aware.