On my way home from work the other day, I decided to stop at
the grocery store to pick up a few salad toppers for dinner. Traffic had been
nightmarish, so I was happy to finally be off the interstate, and comfortably
back in the small town where I live in northwest Virginia.
As I pulled into the parking space at the Food Lion strip
center, I was suddenly accosted by that horrible thump, thump, thumping of
someone’s overblown car stereo…you know…the kind of loud obnoxious noise that
at once makes your chest feel as though someone’s beating on it, and makes you
not even want to get out of the car!
I looked to my left and realized the din was coming from the
car just next to me. Sitting in the passenger side of the car, in both the
front and back seats, were two boys, dirty faces, approximately aged 8 to 10,
who appeared to be brothers. Both of them were staring directly at me, mouths
open, tongues almost protruding, as if they both suffered from swollen
adenoids. One had fairly thick glasses. No one else was in the car with them.
I reached for my reusable shopping bags and my wallet, turned
to exit my car, and these boys were still staring at me, sort of transfixed. I’m
not sure they blinked! It was a little creepy! I reluctantly opened my door and
got out, and I walked quickly, so as to get away from both the mouth-breathers’
stare and this horrible noise that was emanating from their car.
I obviously didn’t walk fast enough, because as I rounded
the back of their car, the little rap ditty that they were blasting assaulted
me once again…this time with language. Before I could walk out of earshot, and
that means, basically, inside the store, I heard the words “f__K”, “motherf__ing”,
“sh_t”, and “whore” all neatly fitted into the so-called lyrics in my short,
but very brisk walk! Mind you, I’ve got a fairly pronounced hearing loss in one
ear, so if I could hear it, I figure nearly everyone on the parking lot was
hostage to the same pollution.
I will say, for the record, that I don’t consider myself a
prude. In fact, (completely guilty!) I have uttered quite a few ‘bad’ words in
my life, and I’m not proud to say that I still do, almost daily. But I TRY to
have discretion and to be considerate of others who may not necessarily want to
hear those kinds of words. I have tried really hard to teach my children the
same thing.
I fought with myself for some time about whether to go back
to the car and give those boys a good talking-to. I have been known to yell at
people at gas stations, etc. to turn the volume down when the stuff that was
coming from their vehicles was so heinous. I have confronted players, coaches,
and parents at sports events when their language was what I consider socially unacceptable.
I have pulled a few kids aside in my adult life and shared with them the
advice, “Hey, if you want to talk like that to your friends, fine, but not out
loud, and not in a public place where everyone can hear you!” I called down a
couple of thuggy kids in a department store at the mall one evening, and was
subsequently threatened by one of them, about age 16 or so. One of the clerks
heard what was going on and called mall security, so, luckily, they all took
off.
But in some cases, I just worry that my stepping in could be
a mistake. Here were these two young kids sitting in a car, unsupervised, and I
just felt like it would not be in MY best interest to approach their car as an
adult male. I’m not proud of that decision, but I stand behind it.
Of course, my conscience and I wrestled all through my
shopping. I even forgot a couple of things I needed because I was so
preoccupied with this situation, and with thinking about these two kids, and
what their lives might be like. I wondered if they have parents. I wondered if
there were any positive role models in their lives. I wondered if whoever
brought them here would maybe have been appalled if he/she/they walked out of
the store and heard what I heard. I wondered if that/those person or persons
would have appreciated my fussing at the kids and making them turn down the
radio. I wondered if the kids would just have mouthed off at me, or even turned
town the radio until I got in the store and then turned it back up.
I was still having this internal struggle when I made my way
to the checkout counter. Still lost in
thought I began to unload my basketful of goodies out on the moving belt.
Suddenly, I was shaken out of my stupor when I heard a very loud woman’s voice
saying, “Yeah, the son-of-a-b__ch called me the other night and said he wanted
my d__n car and my rings! I told him he could just forget that s__t!!” OH MY
GOSH! She was about three checkouts away! She went on to tell the clerk who was
checking her out that ‘he,’ the person of whom she spoke, was the reason she’d
been ”in therapy for months and months!” It was then that it hit me. She looked
just like those two boys in the car…or rather, they looked just like her! This
had to be their mother!
At first, I almost laughed out loud, and then I realized how
very sad it was that this was their role model.
This is the woman who will be in charge of raising these two
boys, responsible for teaching them, protecting them, showing them right from
wrong. This woman who was sharing a huge portion of her life story with the
clerk and everyone else within 50 or 60 yards, and with such ‘colorful’
language, was about to gather up her Spaghetti-Os and her Count Chocula, and
her children, and head home to who-knows-what, and
Groceries in hand, I moved past her and headed for the door.
She was still filling in the clerk about her impending divorce and all the
problems it was causing her. I looked at the clerk, who momentarily stared back
at me with a kind of ‘help me’ look in her eyes. I kept moving. Now, I was on a
mission…to get into my car and out of that parking lot without 1) hearing
anymore of that music than was absolutely unavoidable and, 2) making eye
contact with the ‘children of the corn.’
There was a lot of traffic out on Rt. 11, so when I got to
the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, there were several cars in front of me
waiting to turn left also. It gave me just enough time to say a little prayer…a
prayer that included thanks for parents who were pretty decent, and who raised us
to be pretty decent; parents who taught us about discretion, and about shame;
parents who instilled in us the concepts of appropriateness, and of
consequences. And I prayed for that mother. I prayed that she will somehow come
to some understanding of her responsibility to those children, and to society;
that she will do her very best to give them the tools they need to become fine
young adults; that she will help them understand how to absorb the good
influences in life, and shun the bad; that she can teach them what’s right…and
what’s wrong, and how to tell the difference. And I prayed for those children:
that even if they don’t get the guidance, the influence, and the tools they
will so desperately need from their mother, that those things come to them from
another source, and that they recognize the value of those things, and use them
to become healthy and successful adults.
I said, “Amen,” as I pulled out into traffic on 11, headed
into town. Just then, a car, which was in the left turn lane WITH its left turn
signal on, pulled RIGHT, into my lane, without any warning! I had to slam on
the brakes to keep from rear-ending it! In the safety of my little ‘bubble,’
inside of my car, I said loudly, to no one in particular, “WOW! What a dumb_ss!”
