nosy bitches always trying to get cut.

I am writing to enquire for advice on how one may approach parents whose children are creating a public nuisance. Specifically, I am thinking of those parents who see nothing wrong with letting their children scream and create other disturbances in public libraries, which apparently are no longer universally recognized as quiet sanctuaries. I have tried heavy sighs à la Al Gore, and I have tried glaring, but these methods do not always produce results, and it seems preferable to say a polite something directly to the parents anyway. But I'm unsure what the wording should be. Would it be something like: "Would you mind keeping your child a little quieter?"

Also, would it be appropriate to say something directly to the child, or is it really better to approach the parent instead?

irby: i don't have any children, but OH MAN. you are obviously trying to get the brakes beat off your ass. although i assume you are referring to white children since these disturbances are occurring in a public library (BLACK PEOPLE HATE BOOKS), and their parents are much less likely to resort to pistol-whipping some asshole who needs to get dealt with for talking shit to their goddamned kid. unless you live below the mason-dixon, which then begs the question "why are you in a library when there are methamphetamines to be made?" the wolves who raised me would've skinned my little black ass alive for even thinking about yelling in a public place, and there was a general rule that i was allowed to be spanked by any adult in my immediate vicinity who thought a little corporal punishment might be in order, so i just didn't act like a shithead in public. it wasn't worth it. i instead saved my venom and deep-seated hatred for when i was at home in the safety of my room with my dolls, pitting malibu barbie against hula barbie in a hair-pulling screaming match for ken's neutered male plastic affection.

i like the idea of a child much more than i do the practice of being around one. babies are my jam because they are simple and relatively easy to please. baby solutions: BOTTLE, DIAPER, HEAT, POSITION CHANGE, NAP. you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that ten pounds of moist skinfolds is hollering about. and if the one you just tried doesn't work another fucking will. 1 make it dry 2 make it warm 3 make it full then burp the shit out of it 4 make it bounce 5 make it sleep. BOOM. now you don't have to fuck around wasting your goddamned time trying to make your way through "what to expect when you're expecting." infancy, solved. you don't have to go to college to figure out how to prop a baby on top of your tits and pace a room for thirty minutes to get it to shut the fuck up. teenagers do this shit.

but once they can talk and understand how best to ruin the kardashian marathon you were planning on spending the night watching with their incessant shouting and complicated demands i'm over that shit entirely. you can't reason with these little dirtbags, and threatening them is futile, as they start teaching kids in fucking nursery school that if your mother so much as glares at you for too long you should pick up the phone, call the goddamned police, and retain a lawyer to start the emancipation process. i don't blame parents for not slapping the dogshit out of their offspring. i wish you would, especially when this little sonofabitch just put three bottles of laxatives in my target cart while i had my back turned, but i understand why you don't: jail isn't for everybody. i used to wonder how a bitch could sit in a restaurant doing the crossword undisturbed while a scene straight out of lord of the flies was taking place around her ankles, but now i know that fear of incarceration has created an impenetrable forcefield surrounding her eyes and eardrums, broken only by the snap of a tibia or collarbone.

the real question is why are you in a place where there are so many goddamned children anyway? unless you're 96 years old and female or not in the company of a child of your own, it is one hundred percent creepy and suspicious for your grown ass to be hanging around a library in the middle of the motherfucking day. why aren't you working? is there no starbucks where you live? do you not have a living room? TAKE YOUR OLD ASS HOME. children sometimes make me break out in a sweaty panic, which is why i don't knock off work early to spend my afternoons hanging out at chuck e. cheese; if i wanted to relax in a quiet, child-free environment i'd go to a church. or the coma ward in a hospital. i wouldn't walk into the american girl store and start complaining about all the "giggling." this whole treating children like adults thing weirds me out, and i'm not talking about four year olds in beauty pageants wearing a face full of makeup, i mean sternly eyeing one up and down as he hoots and screams and does all the shit kids are supposed to fucking do. you can't roll up in a KID PLACE and expect kids not to do KID SHIT. i bet you're a real peach to take on a field trip to the zoo.

and what kind of passive-aggressive dickhole does shit like heave a disappointed sigh at a group of noisy children? i hate learning, so i haven't been to a library in a few years, but the last time i needed an encyclopedia i don't recall an army of second-graders whooping and running through the goddamned reference section. go to the place where they have all the newspapers and microfiche and shit, you asshole. this is exactly what i hate about everything that i hate so fucking much, motherfuckers who voluntarily do shit just to complain about it, coupled with the type of person who lives to ruin someone else's day. listen, i hate shit, too, but i choose to keep myself out of potentially irritating situations. here's something you'll never hear me say while sighing and shooting lasers with my eyeballs, "god, the people in this bar are SO DRUNK." i'm in a bar, ho. what the fuck did i expect?!

also, you need to be careful when speaking to someone else's fucking kid. when i was nine i was walking home from school and, as i rounded the corner onto our street, some potential stranger danger harmlessly asked, "did you have a good day at school, little girl?" my mother, who was standing on our steps smoking a cigarette in her nursing scrubs watching to make sure i didn't stop at the store for some jawbreakers, narrowed her eyes and asked me what he'd said as i approached our house. "he asked if he could see my panties," i said, because i thought that shit was funny. BECAUSE I WAS NINE, and a motherfucking hellspawn. we chased that dude for three blocks in my mom's green chevelle, blowing stop signs and running red lights as he ran between buildings terrified of the woman screaming unintelligibly out of her car window at him. until finally i peed my pants in fear and explained to her that i was "joking" and begged her to stop her pursuit and take me home.

don't learn it the hard way. KIDS ARE SMART AND POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS. now go find me some old birth certificates and maps and shit. or, better yet, take your old ass home. it's story time.