I did my usual thing, I went for a drink, I was with friends, however yet again the afternoon was disrupted because rather than talk to each other and their child, the parents of what I must admit was a very cute little girl, spent their time either texting or playing games on their mobiles.
This led to the child screaming at the top of her voice because she wanted to be noticed.
What did the parents do? They let her out of her pushchair to go annoy someone else!
What did the child do? It made a bee line for our table because she could see we where talking and she needed entertaining.
We are a group of blokes together, not babysitters, not perverts or other strange men that would welcome such a creature into our midst, we like to moan alot and get through the afternoon.
Our second reaction, (our first was an instantaneous groan), was to tell the child, 'mummy' is calling you, hoping that she will leave us in peace, what a shame, the child has enough intelligence to know that Mum & Dad are busy and she isn't going to get any response there.
So rather than upset and frighten the child we are stuck, we put up with the child or we upset the parent's, (how dare you frighten my child?).
Here comes the agreement, if you bring your child out, YOU look after it, if you do, you, and your child and we, the people that have nothing to do with it, can all enjoy ourselves, otherwise I and my friends just might lose tolerance with you, (not the child), if you can manage that we can be very friendly people.
