Why people and their kids suck, Reason #5689

This is a tale not involving me, but involving my best friend as related by him...

So, last night as S was leaving work after a long day dealing with idiots (did I mention he's a fellow misanthrope?) he boarded the subway and settled into the niche around the unused doors. A couple of stops later, two women and a kid box him in, the kid standing right next to him in the niche. As the train stopped at the next station, the kid, being useless as kids tend to be, bumped into him. S looked down and noticed that part of the reason why the kid wasn't holding on to anything to keep from bumping into other people was because he was eating. A peanut butter sandwich.

Fine, S thought to himself. It's inevitable the kid's going to get peanut butter on me; I'll just clean it when I get off the train.

At the next stop, the kid bumps into him again. At this point, the kid's mother pipes up and says that S has got peanut butter on him and (amazingly) offers her own gloves to help clean it off. So far, so good.

Now S is an incredibly decent person (he must be if I like him as much as I do when I can't stand most other people). He doesn't make a big deal of things, even when he's annoyed. So he smiled in a friendly way and said no worries and that he had napkins he could use to clean off the peanut butter, but thanks for the offer of the gloves.

The train starts again and S immerses himself in the paper, only to hear the other woman pipe up a few seconds later: "She didn't have to tell you, you know!"

He decided to ignore this and continued reading the paper, although he could hear the two women talking in low tones until they got off the train. Maybe the mother was telling her friend to shut the hell up. Maybe both women were talking about what as asshole S was. Whatever.

But S's rightful reaction (and mine when he told me) was What the Fuck? So your friend's kid (who, by the way isn't being held on to by either of you--why? And is eating something sticky on a rush-hour subway train--why???) gets his crap on someone else's clean clothes and you cop an attitude about it?

Note to parents and those who are sympathetic to them: Your kid is not universally cute. Your kid is not entitled to behave any way it wants to in public, even if watching the kid and, oh, I don't know, actually doing some parenting makes more work for you. And if your kid inconveniences a stranger in any way, be glad the brat didn't get a swift kick, and have the decency not to give the inconvenienced person any fucking attitude!

A breeding license is looking better and better...