Heather Christena Schmidt

I have a lot of pet peeves. People that place a space between their exclamatory sentence and its exclamation point is a big one (OMG ! ! !). Leaving little hairs in the bathroom sink is another. There are quite a few; so many, in fact, that I seem to have lost count.

On today, Day 2 of “My Kid Is Better Than Yours Hell,” I was confronted with another big one: people that believe the world exists solely for them.

This comes out in so so so many ways. Today it was gargantuan – in almost every, single thing I had to run to and get done, when it involved interacting with the humanity of my two-bit, Smalltown, CA town, I encountered it. But there were two, glaring incidences that screamed this pet peeve in my face and sent me home wishing I could hide under the covers until this two weeks of hell is over.

#1 The day started at swimming, and this stupid grandmother was pushing her kid’s stroller into the indoor swimming pool area – which was crowded with (literally) over a hundred people. There are seven or eight classes going on at all times during the summer, and there is a clear walkway between the seated area (which was packed) and the pool. So this bitch – of course under the impression that the world and this pool exist solely for her and her bastard grandchildren – stopped in the middle of the walkway, parked the stroller with the younger bastard, and had the older bastard in the swimming class plop down on the floor and spread eagle to have grandma help take off his boots.

This would not have been such a major deal, but rather a petty annoyance, if only it weren’t time for seven classes to end and exit, and eight classes to enter and begin. All of a sudden there was a bottleneck at the entrance because of this dumb fucking old lady and – in the culminating moment of it all – one of the parents in the back started pushing and the father right behind us (waiting to pass the lady and her stupid ass stroller) fell into the pool.

#2 Then this evening, at t-ball, we were confronted with our resident bully. Since we homeschool, we don’t have too much exposure to how bad bullies have become. Nonetheless, I am always completely shocked to see some of the ways that kids act now.

But what can you expect from a little girl wearing a t-shirt that says “My Mom is More Awesome Than Your Mom.” Seriously? Where can you even get such a thing? It all seemed to be going well until they were learning about the bases and my kid was pushed off the base by this little bitch of a bully wearing her XXXL “My Mom is More Awesome Than Your Mom” t-shirt.

Apparently she pushed because she wanted to be on the base and didn’t want to wait her turn, which all the kids were getting an opportunity to take. Later she kept cutting in batting line as well, until finally the teachers had to talk to the More-Awesome-Than-the-Rest-Of-Us Mom about her kid’s behavior. What did this terribly ghetto and uncouth woman say, you ask?

“Maybe if the rest of these little kids would stop being such pussies.”

Are you fucking kidding me? I swear like a sailor, but never like that and never in front of kids and other parents. I also like to let the professionals handle the situation, but at this point if her little, obese rat of a daughter touches my kid one more time; or she talks like that in front of these kids again – well, my fist will have to be removed from her throat, because no logic or semblance of class and decorum will stop me from putting it there.

The teachers (younger than me and clearly afraid that this ghetto ass trick was going to break out a gun) simply backed down and called all of the parents after the fact to notify them that the park district had warned the mother that her daughter would be removed from the class if there was one more incident like that.

We’ll see what happens next week.

Who knows what is in store for us tomorrow? Yesterday was the near-fight between the two SOAP fathers whose daughters could give two shits about tennis; today was one person after another with a clear unawareness that the world exists for people other than them. In the morning we’re going to swimming yet again and – against my better judgement – in the afternoon we are heading to a free balloon show at our local library. These free kid shows at the library are worse than Disneyland – the most ugly side of all humanity comes out for these things. But the balloon show is really cool, so we’re going to give it a shot. What else will I have to write about then anyway if we don’t?

To the lady at the swimming pool and the ghetto lady at t-ball, this world does not exist for you. Neither does swimming, nor t-ball. Get to the back of the fucking line like the rest of us. Oh, and by the way … I suppose it’s time I should join the ranks and let you both know that: my kid is way better than yours.