Dada in the rye

If you haven't already, you can remove my name from your short list for "man of the year." On Saturday I yelled at a kid.

In the mall.

On a carousel.

Here's the deal: Samson loves to ride the carousel, and one of the malls near us has one. So he and I got on the carousel while Vicki sat on a bench and prepared to wave to us as we made our way around and around and around.

Unfortunately, behind us in line (and subsequently on horseback) were a 12-year-old boy and his sister --- who was probably six or seven. He was annoyed about having to chaperone his sister on the carousel while his mother went into Starbucks, and he was making no bones about it.

Even before we got on the ride, he kept saying --- in a voice that was just the right volume for "hey listen to me everyone and witness my coolness"--- how much the ride was going to suck and how he might throw up from going around and around.

As we started our ride, I was focused on Samson, who was all smiles, enjoying the leisurely pace and looking for his next opportunity to wave to Vicki. However, as we continued our circuit, said kid behind us became progressively louder and more annoying, attempting at one point to knock his sister off her horse. So at about the 50th protestation of "I think I'm going to throw up," I lost it and tersely offered this appraisal:

"You know it wasn't funny the first 50 times you said it. If you're going to throw up, go ahead and do it already. Otherwise, just shut up."

At this point I was immediately annoyed with myself for letting some stupid kid ruin my ride with Samson, who of course, was oblivious to anything but the music and the chance to see mommy once every 360 degrees.

A more conciliatory tone would almost certainly have been better, and while I am not sure I should have told the boy to "shut up," those two words were better than the ones that instantly sprang to mind.

In any event, this kid is apparently the ACLU representative for the sixth grade, because he immediately began whining: "You can't talk to me like that. You have no right to talk to me like that."

By then I had at least regained my composure and merely offered a Zen-like: "I just did."

Did he have a point? Absolutely, and I doubt I'd want some stranger telling my child to shut up. [By the same token, I wouldn't want my child to be trying to unseat his sister on a carousel either, and I think if a stranger had to correct my son, I'd be more mad at Sam for needing it than the stranger for offering it.]

Anyway, as Vicki gently noted on the ride home, I could have probably achieved my purpose without being rude to this kid. There's a reason she's a school counselor, no?

But, and maybe it's my inner Holden Caulfield rising to the surface as we prepare to send Samson to school, I didn't want to be genial or nonconfrontational. I wanted to shame this kid into not being a jerk. [Of course, this required my being a jerk, so I guess I bombed his village to save it.]

All the same, I hate big kids who ruin things for little kids. Rather than sulking in silence, this kid decided to try to bring everyone else around him (first and foremost [and almost literally] his sister) down. And it made me mad.

Although it only lasted a minute, at most, poor Samson didn't know what to make of this. And for a few moments, he kept glancing backward to look at the boy and his sister as if they were somehow gaining on us.

But then he went back to smiling and waving at Vicki as the carousel spun and spun and spun again.