My favorite past time: yelling at children

I've often wondered why my family thinks I hate children. I love spending time with my nieces, once worked as an English tutor for second graders, and I studied to be a children's librarian. I know stories, songs, craft projects, and all of the major AND minor plot-lines from the Harry Potter books. Kids generally like me.  Maybe it's because I'm sort of child-like myself. I love a good jump on the trampoline or run through the sprinklers, and own several pairs of brightly-colored sneakers.

Then, I had a stunning revelation. I yell at children who misbehave in public.

Allow me to share two stories. The first story takes place last summer, when my family came up for the Chalk Art Festival. If you haven't been, I highly recommend it. Artists spend hours drawing on the pavement in Gateway Mall, and people pay to vote on the best drawings as a fundraiser for the local foster care system. Here is one of the drawings:

At the event last year, a couple of unruly children kept running around playing grab-ass, stepping all over the drawings. I promptly scolded them, saying "You need to stop stepping on these drawings. People worked really hard on them." My family thought it was ridiculous that I said anything, but I would do it again in a second.

The most recent encounter was last weekend. Matt and I were playing tennis in one of the local parks, and a group of about eight children kept skate boarding, scooting (or another appropriate verb for riding on a scooter), and running ON THE FREAKING TENNIS COURT. My first instinct was to hit balls straight at their heads to make them go away, but I opted for the more tactful approach of nicely asking them to leave. I sweetly said, "Can you please skate somewhere else? We are trying to use this court to play tennis."

Problem solved? NO. Those little bastards kept skating around the edge of the court, and when they thought I wasn't looking, on the court. A man and his father (or a random kind old gentleman) were on the adjacent court teaching a young boy (son/grandson) to serve, and they were clearly bothered by the juvenile delinquents also. The man said, "Please don't skate here," but they still did not leave. In the meantime, I was getting more and more angry.

It was at that moment when I decided to go with my first plan of hitting them with balls. Before you judge me, please consider the impact of a tennis ball furiously lightly hit at a child. It wouldn't hurt very much, and likely wouldn't cause a concussion or the need for stitches, and it would look like an accident. Plus, they deserved it.

However, I underestimated Matt's ability to return my hits. The kids were right behind him, and when I sent some balls in their direction, he reached out his racket and returned the hits. This only added to my rage. After a couple more semi-polite comments to the kids (during which my voice got progressively louder and louder), I stopped in my tracks and looked the ringleader of the group straight in the eye and shouted said loudly, "You are being very rude right now. We are trying to play tennis. This is a tennis court, not a place to skate. You need to find somewhere else to go. NOW." Then I just stared at him with crazy eyes. I am taking some creative liberties here, because I can't remember exactly what I said. It's possible I was in a rage blackout.

Luckily, someone got video footage of my angry outburst.

It worked! The little demons went to the next court (separated by a fence) to terrorize four women playing a game of doubles...who also happened to be their mothers...who were right there the whole time, and did nothing.

Matt told me later that he was scared I would start a fight with the parents and he'd get his ass beat by the extremely large dads, who were grilling meats nearby. Maybe that is why he was playing so well, desperately running and diving for the balls I was aiming at the kids.

Moral of the story: I can use the tactic of fear to get Matt to improve his tennis game.