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Here's a topic everyone here can bitch about all day long: annoying kids. 
We belong to the local YMCA. They have two outdoor pools open in the summer, a regular one and a kid one that only gets about 2 feet deep and has water features, a little slide etc. I like taking my 4-year-old to the kid one, as he can't swim yet, and I'm pregnant at the moment and can't be holding him up in deeper water as he tends to kick and flail around a lot.
We've only been once this summer so far and it about drove me insane. Here is why.
* There are a limited number of chairs in this area, some regular, some lounge chairs. All of them were taken, forcing me to set our stuff against the fence and sit on the concrete if I didn't want to sit with my feet in the pool- and yes, I'm obviously pregnant at this point and it's getting a bit more difficult to get up and down. Some chairs were taken by adults. Most were taken by their shit. Many chairs had one towel on them. One fucking towel. Because I guess no one had the balls to tell little Suzie that yes, her towel could share a chair with her brother's towel without ending the world.
* My son has this one water shooter thing he likes. Once after playing a while he went back to our bag to get it, but couldn't find it. I go look. It's gone. I look around. This little shit (around 7 or 8) was running around with it. I marched over and told him that was our toy and we needed it back. He thrust it at me without a word of apology. This kid had to see the toy in our (see-through) bag and dig thruogh our towels and assorted other crap to remove the toy. I saw a woman looking at me as I spoke to the kid, so maybe she was his mother. But she was far too busy cooking her skin in the sun to drag herself off the lounge chair to teach him how you don't touch other people's stuff. Which I taught my son beginning when he could walk.
* Speaking of which, one little girl asked if she could use the water shooter. Hallelujah! There's hope. My son let her use it. I kept an eye on her. When her dad called it was time to leave, she threw the toy into the pool and took off.
This enrages me. When a child shares a toy with my son, I make him find the kid who lent it to him, give it back to that kid and thank him for sharing. This is how we repect other people'sproperty.
But these other parents were too occupied with tapping at their smartphones to pay any attention to their brats. Which is why I was sprayed in the face- TWICE- by kids wielding waterguns. One was maybe 2, so I just firmly told her that we do NOT spray people in the face, they don't like it. The second was a little shit, about 8 or so. He sprayed me point blank in the eyes from about 3 feet away. I repeated what I told the girl, and he smirked, "I didn't see you." Bullshit. I told him I knew he could see me perfectly well and if he did it again I'd have the lifeguard eject him from the kiddie pool (I don't know if lifeguards would actually do this, but it worked- he left us alone after that).
And one last gripe- when the sign says no food or drink around the pool, don't bring your fucking goldfish crackers into the pool area! There is nothing nastier than wet globs of goldfish crackers on concrete, being washed into the pool by water that gets splashed out. There's a picnic area a short walk away, drag your brats over there to eat and too bad for them if they want to pitch a fit about leaving the pool for ten minutes.
We belong to the local YMCA. They have two outdoor pools open in the summer, a regular one and a kid one that only gets about 2 feet deep and has water features, a little slide etc. I like taking my 4-year-old to the kid one, as he can't swim yet, and I'm pregnant at the moment and can't be holding him up in deeper water as he tends to kick and flail around a lot.
We've only been once this summer so far and it about drove me insane. Here is why.
* There are a limited number of chairs in this area, some regular, some lounge chairs. All of them were taken, forcing me to set our stuff against the fence and sit on the concrete if I didn't want to sit with my feet in the pool- and yes, I'm obviously pregnant at this point and it's getting a bit more difficult to get up and down. Some chairs were taken by adults. Most were taken by their shit. Many chairs had one towel on them. One fucking towel. Because I guess no one had the balls to tell little Suzie that yes, her towel could share a chair with her brother's towel without ending the world.
* My son has this one water shooter thing he likes. Once after playing a while he went back to our bag to get it, but couldn't find it. I go look. It's gone. I look around. This little shit (around 7 or 8) was running around with it. I marched over and told him that was our toy and we needed it back. He thrust it at me without a word of apology. This kid had to see the toy in our (see-through) bag and dig thruogh our towels and assorted other crap to remove the toy. I saw a woman looking at me as I spoke to the kid, so maybe she was his mother. But she was far too busy cooking her skin in the sun to drag herself off the lounge chair to teach him how you don't touch other people's stuff. Which I taught my son beginning when he could walk.
* Speaking of which, one little girl asked if she could use the water shooter. Hallelujah! There's hope. My son let her use it. I kept an eye on her. When her dad called it was time to leave, she threw the toy into the pool and took off.
This enrages me. When a child shares a toy with my son, I make him find the kid who lent it to him, give it back to that kid and thank him for sharing. This is how we repect other people'sproperty.
But these other parents were too occupied with tapping at their smartphones to pay any attention to their brats. Which is why I was sprayed in the face- TWICE- by kids wielding waterguns. One was maybe 2, so I just firmly told her that we do NOT spray people in the face, they don't like it. The second was a little shit, about 8 or so. He sprayed me point blank in the eyes from about 3 feet away. I repeated what I told the girl, and he smirked, "I didn't see you." Bullshit. I told him I knew he could see me perfectly well and if he did it again I'd have the lifeguard eject him from the kiddie pool (I don't know if lifeguards would actually do this, but it worked- he left us alone after that).
And one last gripe- when the sign says no food or drink around the pool, don't bring your fucking goldfish crackers into the pool area! There is nothing nastier than wet globs of goldfish crackers on concrete, being washed into the pool by water that gets splashed out. There's a picnic area a short walk away, drag your brats over there to eat and too bad for them if they want to pitch a fit about leaving the pool for ten minutes.
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