I've had one of those weeks. Not that anything particularly BAD has happened. It just seems to have been a week which has taken me to the edge of empathy and tolerance. A week when a sigh and a "takes all types" just doesn't cut it. It's probably called "people rage".

I'm not the type of person who would usually ever dream of telling someone they were a f*#%wit... but this week I felt *that* close to doing so to someone. Can a woman be called that? If not, then "a stupid, obnoxious b*tch"?

I don't know.. There have been previous things said by this woman that I've let through to the keeper (after a bit of a rant and some eye-rolling at home.)

Then there was Tuesday. Well. I can *just* cope with someone (her) telling another (who was needing my email address to send me stuff to put on the netball website) that I 'send long and complicated emails' (she refers to the time when I had to set up the netball committee with a gmail account, and she is patently someone who can't absorb more than a one-line instruction).....

But when, for the second time in recent history, she insists that a group of teenage girls (of which my middle daughter was one of) MUST automatically be to blame in a situation... then... I get a little .. testy.

I was at the netball clubhouse sorting out some registrations when I got a call on my mobile from my 13 year old. She had been at our local beach with friends. She was upset and blubbering (so that initially I thought someone must have drowned!). I then managed to ascertain that her mobile phone had got wet, and that a certain local boy - let's call him "J" - was involved. The way I heard it through her wailing was that he had thrown her stuff in the water.

To explain the interrupting phone call, I cursed about this "J" throwing her phone in the water, because he and his mate have lately harassed the girls everytime they've gone down to the beach. My daughter has even called me from the beach before because they have taken their gear and hidden them in the bushes before, and thrown their towels in the water, thrown sand at them... and generally been annoying little shits.)

"That woman" I mentioned above said "Who? "J" ?? Oh, he's a lovely kid.. he wouldn't do anything like that. The girls MUST have done something to him first." Huh? Blame the girls immediately? ... wtf?... This sweeping statement follows on from a netball issue a few months back when my daughter's rep team played her team, and at the committee meeting following it I objected to her sweeping statement that "ALL those 13 year old girls KNEW what they were doing.. they were ALL the same..." because I knew that my daughter was actually a bit naive (and not in the clique) - and genuinely not the type to deliberately cheat, or throw a game...)

"Well, that's crap", I said, "he and his mate have been harassing them for a while... taking their gear while they are in the water, and I'm over it... I'll bloody call his parents...."

"Well, good luck with that" she says. "Watch your back. I wouldn't tangle with his father."

!!!

"Well that says it all", I said. "If the father is like that, then no wonder the kid is a little dickhead."

And I had to therefore wonder about her intelligence, never mind her blatant assumption about "girls" (AGAIN) never mind her apparent need to give her immediate opinion (about MY daughter, as it happens) when it wasn't sought in the first place!

If I'd had any presence of mind I might have suggested to her that she must have been a right piece of work as a teenager given the assumptions she jumps to about all 13 year old girls! (As well as asking, anyway, how the hell she was coping with doing nursing at uni, because I'm sure the information she would have to absorb would be a hell of a lot more complicated than a page of instructions giving the log in and password to a gmail account, along with how using google docs online could be used by the committee.... I mean, THAT is like rocket science...)

Fortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to say that, because that would have just made me a b*tch, wouldn't it?

So I was riled up with this woman, and of course I was pretty furious about this "J". As it turned out I hadn't accurately deciphered my daughter's blubberings. What had happened was that at school that day he had threatened to take their stuff if they were at the beach.. so they had decided "prevention" was in order, and put their bags closer to the water than usual. Not taking account of the tide. No "J", but a wave.

An error of judgement by the girls - and particularly Ms 13, who was the only one with a phone in her bag - but spurred on by the threats and harassment nonetheless. And leaving nothing for us to go to the parents with if we chose to ignore the reality that there are unsavoury parents out there.

Her mobile phone is kaput. Which, as you can imagine, led to some rantings by one of the parental units in the house. (Not necessarily me either...)

So I'm a bit miffed with human nature this week.. and the fact that I pretty much have to suck it up, and just vent where I can, because I am not the type to confront people. (Especially if it is just to tell them what I think of them!) And that there are kids whose parents don't care about where they are or what they are doing, and who might well decide to set out on a campaign of harassment if approached when their little darlings impinge on the rights of others...

And then Halloween in our neighbourhood simply showcases this, with gangs of kids roaming the street, using Halloween as an excuse to run riot. This year only one egg made it onto our property - and thankfully not on the actual house this time. But it certainly wrapped up the theme of the week

And of course this week I seem to have come across more fools in cars than I might usually... you might have even seen me blow the horn a few times at someone who kept veering over into my lane....

And the eldest daughter nearly failed her Yr 10 trial school certificate maths, and we ended up with an appointment up at the school, because much of this has to do with the utter uselessness of the teacher, and finally something had to be said. But some of it is down to Ms 15's attitude, and lack of self-motivation to study. And so when her father and I banned the computer so she would have time to do maths, we were called 'unreasonable'.. which then led on to being called over protective parents, because she knew (correctly) that she wouldn't be allowed to go to a Halloween party at a town nearly 2 hours drive away!! (As well as the fact that she has still not been allowed on sleepovers when I don't know the parents...)


And the scariest thing of all, to me, is that there are a significant amount of people in the US who would happily vote in McCain with that woman Palin... to lead the nation that is (perhaps unfortunately) still, ostensibly, the leader of the 'free' world. Heaven help the world.

As I have been reminded this week, it takes all types. Just sometimes that is a very big worry.


[Go to http://iftheworldcouldvote.com/ and continue to ease my fears just a little bit! Unfortunately the world will not be voting.]

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Labels: aarrrgghhh