From: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Newsgroups: alt.peeves
Subject: Satanic Death Toddlers From Hell
Summary: toddlers of death, satanic variety, origin hell
Keywords: breezeblock kalashnikov kylie penicuik psychedelic pushchair
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:15:02 GMT
Reply-To: Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk (Not Al Crawford)
Organization: Penicuik People's Revolutionary Sheepdog Liberation Front

Why is it that some peeves keep coming up again and again? Presumably
because these peeves have a higher intrinsic degree of peevishness than
others. I experienced one this morning. It's been gone over here a dozen
times before, but I feel I have to relate this sorry tale once again.

This morning has *not* been a good morning. It might be fair to say that
this has been a thoroughly bad morning. To start with, I went for my bus.
No, this isn't a bus peeve, but must be explained to fully appreciate my
state of mind at the time that the peeve proper occurred.

I'd been fully expecting my bus to get into work late, since due to
roadworks there have been long (3km) tailbacks around Penicuik at rush
hours. My spirits were raised slightly by no sign of tailbacks, but
plummetted rapidly when my bus didn't turn up *at all*. Twenty minutes at
the bus stop being buzzed by wasps does not do your state of mind a great
deal of good.

Instead, I had to catch the next bus, which goes through Loanhead. It's
astonishing, actually, the two buses follow almost exactly the same route,
yet one goes through Loanhead and the other doesn't. Well, that in itself
isn't astonishing, minor deviations in bus routes are rarely hailed as
miracles, with hordes of pilgrims flocking to worship at the point at which
The Holy No. 64A Turned, And Lo, It Did Go Through Loanhead. What is
astonishing is that the direct bus is usually passengered by a reasonably
civilised bunch of people, most going into work - decent, honest,
hardworking, normal people. In the fifteen minutes before the next bus,
however, the passenger mix changes entirely so that it is filled with
125-year old pensioners who can't read the "No Smoking" signs (probably
can't even *see* the "No Smoking" signs), teenage yobs with swastikas
shaved into their hair skipping school and women built like brick privvies
who you're sure must've been rejected by the Soviet shot-putting team for
being too unfeminine. You can't help but feel that suddenly the bus is
missing something, like chickens in the luggage racks, goats in the aisles
or freedom fighters with Kalashnikovs and bad personal hygiene hanging out
the windows. Ideally the driver should be called Ahmed, be missing some
teeth and cackle a lot too.

Still, the Uzbekhistan Express eventually made it into Loanhead, and here
the peeve began. A young mother got onto the bus, carrying a pushchair, an
infant of approximately 18 months and a toddler of about 2 1/2. "Reasonably
harmless", I thought, since the most annoying kids usually have mothers
with a cigarette glued to their lower lip who wear shell suits and have a
tendency to squawk "Kylie, stop trying to set fire to that man's hair" and
similar mellifluous epithets. This young mother was smartly dressed though,
and looked as if she'd keep the kids under control.

Little did I realise that this smartly dressed woman was to the typical
17-year old, chain-smoking single mother called Tracy what several
extremely dangerous men called Guido wearing smart suits and carrying
loaded violin cases would be to a wino dressed in rags.

So this smartly dressed woman sat, acting as though nothing was happening,
while her two kids proceeded to annoy the hell out of everyone on the bus.
To give an idea of their behaviour - have you ever been to the zoo and seen
monkeys tearing around their cage like the very hounds of hell were after
them, running around the walls and across the ceiling as though mere
physical limitations such as the presence of gravity or the speed of light
somehow didn't apply to them? These kids made those monkeys look like
another animal you might see in the zoo - a three-toed sloth. A *dead*
three-toed sloth.

For the entire duration of the journey, neither kid stopped moving for more
than a millisecond. They discovered that the seat was bouncy and performed
a very impressive trampoline act, with toddlers ricocheting all over the
bus. They clambered all over the seats, even if *there was someone else
sitting in them at the time*, they were a perpetual blur of motion and a
continuous source of noise. They were, it must be said, somewhat
hyperactive, yet the mother sat there blissfully unaware as these
pre-school sociopaths drove everyone else on the bus slowly insane. No,
make that "quickly insane."

I can just picture the scene at the breakfast table as the smartly dressed
young mother put on her designer gear and saw to the nutritional
requirements of her hellish offspring. "Would you like some orange juice,
darling?"  "Hmm, that looks a little bitter, why don't I add this half-kilo
of refined sugar to it?" "Oh, you sleepy head, here, I'll crumble these
caffeine pills in your orange juice."  "How about I add some speed to that
juice to pep you up a little?" The end result was two vibrating babies who
just wouldn't stop moving.

Oh, except in one situation. For some reason babies seem unable to resist
people sitting in the seats behind them. Guess who was sitting behind them?
So, while I was trying to mind my own business and listen to some music, I
was treated to a number of wide-eyed "Aren't I an endearing little
bastard?" looks and one attempt to grab my Discman, presumably because the
play of light on the spinning disc was causing interesting psychedelic
effects for these hallucinating hyped-up infants. And why is it that the
more you ignore some goggle-eyed brat, the more they stare at you? Which
can be particularly disconcerting when their pupils occupy most of their
eyes and their eyes seem to be pointing in several different directions at
the same time.

Oh, how I wished I'd brought a BabyBag (tm) with me! I doubt, though, that
a BabyBag (tm) would have been sufficient for these two. Something more
drastic would have been called for. It was then that I realised that the
BabyBag (tm) was only a partial solution to a problem, a problem which
could be solved completely by...

Quick-Setting Concrete. Initially I thought concrete boots would help, just
plant junior in a bucket of the stuff before going out and he/she would be
rooted firmly to the spot while in transit. No more clambering over the
seats or annoying the other passengers.

Why do things by half-measures though? The ideal toddler transport system
should immobilise the child completely, and ideally silence it too.

Announcing BabyMould (tm). Simply subdue your brat, place it in the mould
and pour the quick-setting concrete around them. If you're concerned for
their safety, inserting, say, the tube of a pen into their mouth so they
can breathe might be advisable. Alternatively, use duct tape over all
exposed orifices to avoid the ingestion of the concrete. If turning the
block end over end isn't considered a viable means of locomotion, wheels
may be set into the concrete allowing the block to be easily moved.

Once the concrete has set, your child, no matter how hyperactive, can be
safely transported anywhere without disturbing other passengers or causing
damage to property. On arrival at your destination, you may either split
the concrete to free the child or leave him/her in the handy concrete mould
until you get home.

True, a block of concrete looks rather ugly, so to make the idea more
appealing to the child, the moulds could be made into the shapes of popular
cartoon characters. I'm sure that given the chance of actually *being*
their favourite cartoon character (although not in a very, ahem, animated
manner) most pre-school children would jump at the chance to be set in a
block of quick-setting concrete.

Or, to follow a recent trend in toy marketing, cartoons based *around* the
product could be produced, which would save on having to licence characters
or even, if the cartoon characters were carefully designed, simplify the
design of the moulds. Teenage Mutant Ninja Breezeblocks or Mickey Brick
sound like good places to start to me.

--
		Not Al Crawford - Not_Al_Crawford@ed.ac.uk
      "Brothers, sisters, we don't need this fascist sheepdog thang"