The Death of Discretion

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!”