Road Rage................

Kahu woke at 4.45am the other morning expecting his breakfast and Brendon got up to make it for him......i'm sure you were all hanging off the edges of your seats for that one. I'm still tired.......so nothing new there.

Anyway i've got more important matters to get off my chest and i might use bad language so apologies in advance. Here goes....

We had a fantastic morning today, we've been going to Gymnastics for the past 4 weeks on a Wednesday morning with friends from Playcentre. It's great, the kids love it-and then we go to a really cool kid-friendly cafe afterwards. They have a big sandpit and toys as well as crayons & paper to keep the kids occupied while we Mums have a coffee and chat. We look forward to it every week, a really good outing. Anyway today was no different......except for what happened afterwards. I piled Kahu & Kiwa into the car covered in sand and half-eaten pikelets with jam and set off to do a few jobs. One of these jobs was to go to Edex toys and get a bday present for Kahu's friend Jade who is turning 4 this weekend. She's having a 'crazy hair-do' party and Kahu's invited. On the drive over to Greerton, the kids fell asleep in the car which i was secretly pleased with as i didn't really fancy the idea of taking two tired, grubby kids into a toy shop of all places and i didn't have the energy to deal with explaining to Kahu that we were shopping for Jade and not for him. So my plan was to find a park right outside and dash in and get the pressie. I did about 5 or so laps of the car park waiting for the perfect park to become available, the one right outside the door so that I could see the kids if they woke.....things are going well when i see a lady with a small child coming out of the toy shop and approaching her car which is in my perfect park. I pull up close but not too close of course put on my indicators and wait for what seems like an age while she straps her boy in, folds up her pram and proceeds to pull out. I cannot believe my eyes when a couple probably in their 50's-early 60's driving a hatchback, come from the other direction and pull right into MY park. Now i'm the first to admit that there are those times when these things happen and are a genuine mistake, and even if they're not genuine sometimes you just drive off and mutter something under your breath. Well this wasn't one of those times for me and it wasn't a genuine mistake at all, it was blatant bad manners.

Let me point out that i am not in the habit of attacking people in car parks, no matter how tired or stressed i might be. But i needed to get that present today, i needed to have that exact park and bloody hell i just needed it to happen OK. My car is in the garage being repaired and i haven't had it for about a week and i'm not sure when i'm getting it back. Today i dropped Brendon at work and had the use of his car for the day, so the pressure was on to get all these jobs done. OK. So i rolled down my window and said politely 'Excuse me, i was waiting for that park for ages before you came along etc etc, my kids are asleep in the car and i just need to go in and grab something from that toy store etc etc'...... something along those lines. To which the male replied "too bad, what do you want me to do about it, it's a public car-park". To which i replied "Move".

So he moved and i drove into the park right outside the front door of Edex Toys. This should have been the end of it, except for the part where his wife starts walking towards my car and calling me a 'stupid bitch'. I couldn't believe it, i was just staring at her in shock....anyway her name-calling continued, and i thought right that's it, so i yelled out at the top of my voice "I'd rather be a stupid bitch than a fat, old tart". Hmmmmm ...... classy one Lis. Thank God the kids were asleep.

The saga continues. Her husband returns from re-parking their car and puts his head through the open window of my car, gets right in my face and starts asking me if i'm happy now and telling me I need to say thankyou. Get a life. By this point, i started to think ok things are getting a tad ridiculous so i told him plainly to just go away.

The finale goes something like this........they start to walk off and i think i'm in the clear when the wife turns to the husband and says within earshot of course. "She's gonna leave those kids in the car, she's gonna leave those bloody kids in the car while she goes into the shop, that's illegal".
The husband then turns to me and tells me that if i leave the car, he'll ring the cops.

I should've just gone into the shop and to hell with them but i didn't. I drove home and got Maggie my mother-in-law and she came out and did the rest of the errands with me. Thanks Maggie!!!

I was really shocked and apalled at the attitude of these two nasties that I came across today.....they looked so normal and decent!!! just like Mr and Mrs Higgins or Sean & Sharon Ryan....just your typical nice people but there was something more sinister lurking underneath!!! I've re-told this story what seems like a hundred times already today and have been met with some interesting reactions. Here's my fave........

My brother Matt- you should have knocked them the f*** out. Ha, can you imagine it??!!!

On my outings with the kids i've come across some really lovely people. People that have held doors or carried a bag, even offered to hold one of the kids while you tend to the other. A sympathetic smile or a kind word goes a long way when you're trying to deal with a tantrum in public or a baby that won't stop crying or such like. I've met some not so helpful and quite intolerable people also, but nothing at all like today's experience. It takes the cake.

Thanks for the rant, i'm off to bed......Ciao