Stupid People Police

I was talking with Ronda today about my vigilante justice I conduct here in the northwest. It all started last year when I finally let loose and yelled at the teenagers who hang out at the end of my street, blocking the mailbox and leaving their trash for me to pick up. It all came to a head after two years of peaceful negotiations with school officials and policemen. Finally one day I took my camera and took a picture of the kids to forward to their principal. One girl took umbridge with this photo and she and I exchanged words. (A girl to whom I had kindly spoken to on a number of different occasions asking her to not hang out and leave her lunch trash on my sidewalk.) This time she was offended that I took her pictures. I assured her I wasn't the papparazzi and that it was perfectly legal. I asked her why such a bright young lady would be hanging out with these pot head losers, ( who were across the street and too high to even know what I was saying.) She called me a name, so I told her she was ignorant and trashy. And I asked her who in the right mind would even pick up a cigarrette in this day and age knowing what we know. I drove away yelling at her and her friends that they were all stupid, trashy, idiots and that I was calling the cops and they would be arrested for trespassing. (total lie.) I felt bad as I drove away. (I was pregnant at the time).I was embarrassed as a grown woman that I had lowered my self to actually name calling. ( and my kids were in the car and I think I scared them a bit.) Well, as it turned out the crazy, pregnant lady did the trick. I haven't seen the kids hanging out for a year. ( We live across the street from a high school and middle school)
This episode made me feel empowered. And since then I have reprimanded kids at the parks, my neighbor kids, kids at the mall and anytime I see dumb kids, unsupervised who are causing a problem for my family. I will not leave a park because some dumb 13 year olds are roughhousing on equipment for small children. I will tell them to leave that the equipment is not intended for them. This may not be a big deal for some of you. Some of you have probably been sticking up for yourselves in this manner all your lives. Not I. I was always taught to "be nice".
I bring this up because today I was at a place called Cafe Sip-n-Play. I met the mother of a child in Lia Belle's pre-school class there for a play date. The first time I have ever met this nice lady. She had a 2 year old son that came along. Her two year old was playing nicely when a much larger 4 or 5 year old girl was being kind of a bully and pulling a toy cash register away from him. She wouldn't let go even after his poor little finger got stuck in it. My new friend was trying to get this child to let go because she was the ripping the poor little boys fingernail off with every tug. I fetched some employees to help get his finger out. The little girl walked away in a huff after she realized she wasn't going to get the toy. I wondered where is this child's mother? Finally a man quietly walked over to the little girl. I calmly said to him, "Your daughter would not let go of that toy even while my friend was telling her that his finger was stuck in it." The man ignored me. I'm sure he was embarrassed and didn't know what to do after finding himself in a lair of mama bears. He took his daughter to a table and she cried because he wouldn't let her play anymore. We cut our playdate short because her son was really in pain. She needed to take him home, his fingernail was totally ripped off. On the way out, she calmly said, "You need to talk to your daughter about sharing. I told her to let go and she would not and kept pulling. She really hurt him." This dad just looked at my new friend like she was from mars. (really, she was very calm and in controll of herself, not scary at all.) He did not make his daughter apologize or say that he was sorry. Looking back I want to go back and tell that guy off. These are times I wish I was more like Cheryl, I know she would not have hesitated to give this man a lesson in how to supervise your children while in public.
Unfortunately, I can only seem to stick up for myself when I have two years to think about it and role play in my head what I might say, like I did with the teenagers. I wish I could think faster on my feet.
Then again I think maybe my inability to reallly be vocal and yell at stupid people on a moments notice is a blessing in disguise. I'm sure if I were to go around flying off the handle all the time (it could be all the time because you wouldn't believe how many stupid people there are when you go out in public), I would surely say many things I would regret and then look back and say to myself, "I should have handled that differently". I need to find a balance. I'm sure this will be a lifetime quest.