I lived among many "broken toy" types in my old apartment complex, but there was this specifically horrible woman who lived there, roughly three years ago. She was a "Danny Devito" character: short, round, homely, and scowling. Her saving grace was that she was not bald, but then again, if she was, I may have felt sorry for her and forgave her disgusting manners.
Anyway..."DD" would sit and glower at me in the building complex playground, and the Pollyanna aspect of my personality told me that I was being paranoid, thinking that she had it in for me. But, I was not. She hated my guts.
She had three or four children who were older than my toddler/preschoolers; I'll never forget the time that I was strolling my snack-toy-diaper-laden double Mountain Buggy laboriously across the parking lot, as I was en route to the pediatrician with my sick child. I was on my cell, asking the nurse a last-minute question. And then, I was honked out: Behind me was the Danny Devito Lady and her huge Lexus SUV blasting her horn; I was holding her up and she was not having it. If we lived in more savage times, I would have served her as a human speed bump. And I thought to myself:
"What a horrible, self-righteous, hypocritical...?!
Doesn't she understand?
Doesn't she have children?"
But today, I sort of get it, although I have much better manners: I would have cursed under my breath with the windows rolled up; unequivocally, there would have been no horn blast. We were neighbors, after all.
For those of us who are "done" with procreation, it is here, where "someone" might metamorphose into a real jerk; someone might sigh-hiss when some annoying, entitled new mother is blocking the Starbucks door entrance with her turbo Bugaboo; someone might not think that the random "22-month-and-five-days" infant is "cute enough to eat" as he scream-tantrums while "someone" is on a rarefied, uninterrupted phone conversation; someone might not be ultra-inclined to hold the door open for that cumbersome and slow mega stroller that is taking its own sweet time, as someone has her own children to pick up from the bus stop, as someone's children not only walk and run and eat by themselves, they (gulp) read. Yes, there are a few instances where "someone" may act like a "something".
When enough time has passed by; when the pregnancy weight and bad sleep habits are solely our own faults, "someone" might go to the other side: the self-centered side where someone thinks first and foremost of their own needs and agendas; the side we started from before the kids, and return to after they grow up...or after we drop them off for a few hours...or maybe this is just me, er I mean, someone?
But then that "someone" will get hers: she will be riding a crowded NYC MTA bus with her children; the bus will be crowded and she and her - adorable - twins will be blocking the back exit, causing a major annoyance for some irritated seemingly single or menopausal woman. And hyper-ironically, this "someone" will think to herself,
"Who the f-ck gets into a hissy-fit over a poor, sweet, innocent child with a too-big backpack?"
Uh, who?
