Shut Up, Kids.

Okay, can I talk to you guys for just a sec about kids?

I am down with kids, more or less, although I am in no particular rush to have my own. I think that's more a function of my life being hectic and busy right now than actual biological clock issues...it's hard to imagine adding kids into the mix. However good or bad a parent I may be when I get around to that milestone, though, I plan on doing one very important thing, which is PAYING ATTENTION TO WHERE IT'S APPROPRIATE TO BRING MY GODDAMN KID.

There are two little beasts in the office right now who have been stampeding around all day. They belong to the same woman (I think) who has been bringing her mid-teenaged daughter in on and off (more on) over the course of maybe a month, apparently so the girl can go on MySpace and pass the time. Does Mid-Teen Daughter bother me? No, not really, although I do think it's slightly odd that she would want to hang at her mom's work. She doesn't bug me because she is QUIET and NOT DISRUPTIVE. THREE TIMES I have had to shut my door just in order to HEAR PEOPLE on the other end of the phone. TWICE, these children have come into my office for various reasons, all annoying. All I can hear, above everything, is shrieking and giggling. SOMEONE PLEASE KILL ME.

It's the same thing that bugs me about Meeting sometimes. I just outright don't like having kids in adult Meeting, while Ma is down with kids being there for 20 minutes or so and then being shooed out to Sunday school. I can live with the 20 minute concept, I guess, but the thing is...well, do you remember playing "the Quiet Game" when you were little, where someone would arbitrarily decide a start point and then everyone would be "quiet" as long as they could? Remember how your group, no matter what size, could only be "quiet" for about 5 minutes, tops, except that one kid who grew up to read depressing French literature and could be actually be quiet, and proceeded to do so for the next three hours? And remember how "quiet" actually meant "squirming around in your seat and messing with the seatbelt and flicking your brother in the head while making any noise that could not be constitutionally declared an actual word, i.e. humming, snorting, and other assorted noises"?

Yeah.

Kids don't do an hour's worth of not talking. They squirm, kick their seats, pester their parents, etc. It's supposed to be silent reflection, okay? Not "mostly everyone not talking except that kid who is fidgeting and talking about Cheez-its." Amongst other things kids don't do? Eight hour workdays. I don't do eight hour workdays, and I actually have a job to do when I am here. I am old enough to vote for the President, and I get all kinds of ADD and boredom and irritation and whatever, and AGAIN...I have a reason for being here. Love my job, totally love it, but yo, sometimes being here eight hours straight is not really my thing. And you want a kid - and we ARE talking kids, these gals can't be breaking 8 - to amuse itself (not a slam on kids, I just don't think themself is an actual word) for eight hours? AUGH. Not! Appropriate! This is not a babysitting agency. Get a sitter. Christ.

I cannot WAIT for this day to end and to be rid of these children.

I am starting with Ma's personal trainer tomorrow - I am psyched but also nervous. But hooray for being less fat! HOO, HOO, HOO, HOO!