I read an article about another airline booting a family off of a flight because the parents couldn’t get one of their children to stop throwing a fit. I love reading stories like this. I love them because I am so sick of this belief that we should sympathize with parents who can’t control their misbehaving kids. “Oh, boo hoo…you kicked me off of a flight because my child was screaming and kicking. You owe us an apology.” No, you’re the one who owes the apology. Have you ever been trapped on a flight with a screaming child before? I have…twice. And both times were hell.

The first time was back when my sister and I were flying home for winter break. We sat in front of a family that had two daughters: one screamed and shrieked the entire flight; the other kept kicking the back of my sister’s seat. The second time involved me sitting next to a toddler who screamed and cried for almost 6 straight hours. Nothing compares to the misery of those flights. I once sat through a 10-hour flight while stricken with food poisoning…oh, and I was assigned the awful middle seat and couldn’t go to the bathroom without tapping the people next to me. Even that experience was way more tolerable than sitting through a 6-hour flight with a screaming kid.

The thing is, even though I know the people on those flights were just as irritated as I was, none of us said anything to the parents. It was somehow engrained in our minds that we were supposed to just deal with it…to give the parents a pass because they were parents. But there’s a problem: if the parents aren’t going to do something about their children, then who is? It’s not like I could go up to a stranger’s kid and scold some sense into it. My ass would get hauled off to jail. Instead, we have to rely on the parents. But if they’re not going to school their kids, then we’re sh*t out of luck. And that doesn’t seem fair at all.

So I applaud those airlines that have been willing to say “We’re not going to take your kid’s crap anymore. Get the steppin’!” I only wish more establishments would do that…especially restaurants. And of course I have a story to explain why.

A friend and I went out to eat one day. The place was pretty busy, and we were told to wait for the next available table. Also waiting for a table was a large group of about 10 adults and children. One of the kids was a little boy (he was maybe about 6 years old or something…I’m not good with ages) who was waving his arms around and tweeting. I don’t mean “tweeting” as in he was posting something on Twitter. The kid was literally shrieking “tweet tweet” over and over again.

This tweeting was beyond obnoxious–and the kid wouldn’t shut up! And the more he kept at it, the more pissed off I became. At one point, I was actually trying to figure out a way to “accidentally” knock him on his face so that he bit his tongue off and then shattered all his teeth.

I couldn’t think of anything that would give me the ideal results, so I resorted to a more passive aggressive tactic: the “F*ck Off” face. You know what I’m talking about, right? It’s that glare you give to inconsiderate assholes…like, the asshole who coughs and sneezes without covering his mouth, or the other asshole who takes a call in the middle of a movie. Yeah, that face.

Anyway, although the kid’s tweeting made using the “F*ck Off” face totally appropriate, I was not going to use it on him. I mean, he’s a child. He probably wouldn’t understand the message that my eyeballs were trying to convey. It would be a waste of energy glaring at him.

Instead, I used the “F*ck Off” face on the kid’s mom–who was sitting in a chair right next to him, could see and hear her son being an obnoxious sh*t, but didn’t say a damn thing to him. So I decided to let her know that she needed to pick up the parental pace. Whenever the kid tweeted, I would turn to look at him–thus showing mom that people were noticing her son’s bad behavior–and then I would turn to mom and give her the “F*ck Off” face. I did this about three times before she got the hint. Great, I thought, she’s going to shut him up.

But instead of giving her son anything even remotely close to resembling discipline, mom just muttered a few words. And before you start thinking that maybe the kid was retarded or whatever, he wasn’t…because as his mom was speaking to him, he cut her off by covering his ears. And what did mom do? She gave up!

Soon after watching this woman’s weak-ass attempt at keeping her child in check, the waitress came by and led their party of 10 to a table towards the back of the restaurant. And as they walked away, another waitress came over to seat my friend and me. All I could think about was, “Please don’t give us a table near that kid! Please don’t give us a table near that kid!”

Thankfully, we were seated many tables away from the tweeting turd child. Even though I’d gone through a rather painful ordeal in the waiting area, at least I was going to be able to enjoy my meal.

Do you know how loud that kid had to have been for me to hear him? I was at a restaurant that was packed full of patrons, had music coming out of giant speakers, and four televisions that were showing basketball games on high volume. And despite all that noise diarrhea, I could still hear “Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!” It was awful.

We ended up shoveling our food into our mouths and leaving the restaurant as soon as we could because neither of us could take the auditory abuse much longer. And as we left, I turned to look at the kid’s table and noticed that all the diners sitting nearby looked absolutely miserable. Some of wait staff looked just as unhappy. The only people who didn’t seem to care were the kid’s parents.

I really don’t understand why the family didn’t do anything to shut him up…just like how I don’t understand why some parents let their kids run around restaurants, or kick the backs of airplane seats even though people are sitting in them. Do the parents think their kids are acting cute? Are they not doing anything because they’re burnt out? Well, too freakin’ bad for them because there isn’t an excuse in the world that would justify forcing the public to put up with someone else’s sh*tty kids.

And so what if I don’t have children of my own? I honestly don’t think having kids would make me hate annoying children any less.