Sometimes You Should Just Keep Your Mouth Shut

When you step outside of the teacher role, it is often difficult to remind yourself that random children don't need your discipline.

Midway through my journey to Boston yesterday, the train stopped in New Haven. The train was calm, quiet with nary a murmur emanating from any pair of seats. This soon come to a crashing halt when a cadre of noisy ass children entered with their exasperated mother. I could not keep count, because I was trying to avert my eyes. In all honesty, other people's children kind of freak me out. I never know what to do with them or what to do when they act out. And for the love of God, don't ever ask me to hold a baby.

Yes, I was a classroom teacher for four years. Hush.

You know those moments when you just pray that an approaching disturbance in a public setting doesn't settle right next to you? IT ALWAYS DOES.

Of course their mother decided the perfect place to settle was next to the red-faced-from-crying-over-leaving-New York man trying to watch "Recount" on his computer.

Look, I don't think little children should be allowed to handle luggage. It's either larger than their bodies or they have no idea how to maneuver it. No, parents, it's not cute. It raises my blood pressure. The first child was having such a difficult time getting her Dora the Explorer rolling suitcase to move that she burst into a raging fit.

"Please don't let this child sit next to me," I begged with my eyes to the mother. She took notice and told her seven year old son to take a place next to me.

Bad idea, because the kid went ape shit.

"NO!" he screamed.
"Why not?" Harried Mommy says.
"What if he is a bad man?!"

What the fudge? How could I even come across as a 'bad man?' Was it my unshaven look? I mean, I've been told I looks creep after a few days of not shaving but come onnnnnn.

I tried to look less creepy by smiling at the both of them.

"See, honey? He's not a bad man he's smiling" and she turns away because one daughter is hitting the other on the forehead with a bottle.

The boy looks back and me and my smile fades...on purpose. I really didn't want this kid near me.

"He is NOT SMILING, MOM!"

Smile comes back and mother's gaze returns.

"Yes he is so SIT."

I speak up, "No worries, I'm a teacher" and smile back at the boy.

CO. NIP. TION. FIT.

The child screams. Just screams. People turn and face me like I had punched him in the face.

"I don't like teachers," he shouts.

"He had a difficult year with his 1st grade teacher," Momma says. Whoever his teacher was, I hope he or she is having a stiff drink at the moment.

I don't know why, but that really pissed me off. Maybe it was because he exemplified all of those kids that rubbed me the wrong way.

Without missing a beat, I say to him, "Well, you better get used to teachers. You will have them for the next 15 years."

Well, that was dumb of me. What started out as a scream became a high-pitched terror fit. The kid threw a Fischer Price person in my face. In my face. I know I deserved it, but holy hell....

Thankfully, the father found them somewhere else to sit soon after. They all got up and I tried not to look at them as they left. Harried Mommy apologized profusely but that freakin' kid looked like he wanted to give me the Vulcan Death Grip.

Lesson learned: Shut up, Mr. Vest.