I saw a heartwarming story on BuzzFeed today. It was just a simple note that somebody had made about a café in Cheltenham that had invited a rather frazzled-looking mum in for a cup of tea so she could regain her composure and feed her hungry baby. The mum happened to want to breastfeed her little one, but that’s irrelevant; they offered her a place to sit down in comfort and peace and quiet and also some refreshment to get through her ordeal.
Now, in days gone by, I’d have maybe gone on a rant about fucking mothers taking their babies out when they know they’re hungry and likely to be screaming their fucking heads off and disturbing the peace and why the fuck should they expect special treatment when, quite frankly, it’s their fucking choice. Cunts!
These days, however… well… we all go out and about and we get frazzled for one reason or another. One reason I get a bit agitated is because I have to dodge parents with kids and prams who think they own the pavements and who think the world owes them a bloody favour just because they have bred. Nobody offers me a free cup of coffee and a sit down when I’m frazzled, and when I do venture into a coffee shop, it’s often nigh on impossible to get to the bar or to find a seat because all the space is full of fucking prams, or kids running into the lower limbs of people who are carrying scalding hot beverages.
No, it’s fine, you come and have a mother and baby meeting here and block all the entrances, exits and walkways with your stupid, massive prams. Get all uppity and assume that people will object when you want to breast-feed your child. Seriously, I don’t care how you feed it, just shut it up. And don’t go all “I can’t believe you’re bottle feeding your baby, don’t you know that breast milk contains all sorts of antibodies and goodness?” on some poor woman who for one reason or another chooses not to breast feed or who can’t breast feed. And I pity your offspring if you’re passing all that bitterness and sense of entitlement onto them via your mammaries.
There was once a time when I had a significant other who I went out and did things with. We found ourselves in York, or was it Harrogate, somewhere a bit nobby and Yorkshire and we were looking for somewhere that sold nice coffee (that being Illy) before setting off back to Manchester. And there it was, the shining beacon to all coffee connoisseurs – an Illy sign on a wall behind a railing-enclosed yard. Even better, the café itself was actually down a flight a of stairs. The potential for the yummies with their four wheel drive, temperature-controlled prams was negligible. We descended the steps and, to my horror and disgust, there they were: table upon table of mothers with babies, their prams blocking doorways, the bottom of the stairs, the path to the counter. They will always find a way. And fuck, will they bitch about having to navigate pram “unfriendly” access to get there.
I had a dear friend stay with me this weekend. We know each other from my time in Coventry over twenty years ago. On separate occasions, both she and her partner were housemates of mine. Although they live together still in the Kingdom of Surrey, we still try to keep in contact and are determined to see each other at least once a year. She’d come up north to do some ridiculous swimming thing in the faeces-infested waters of the Manchester Ship Canal at Salford Quays. I went to meet her, accompanied by yet another hangover, on Saturday morning after she’d finished her activity.
I was in desperate need of food and coffee, she was in need of food and tea, we nipped into Café Rouge at The Lowry. I was kind of hoping that, at 11.30am, they’d be serving the lunch menu, but, crestfallen, I was handed the Petit Dejeuner menu as I took my seat – not inside, but not quite outside, which I thought was a bit oo la la enough to watch the torrential rain as it battered the concourse between the utterly rubbish outlet shopping mall and the not too bad Lowry Museum and venue for all sorts of shows and shit. Anyway, at the table next to us was a woman of my age, maybe a little younger and an older woman, and some little boys, probably about five or six years in age. They looked lovely actually; dressed the way little boys should be dressed with little short sleeved, checked shirts and nice trousers. My mind wandered to them: I am hungover, I have a fork in my hand, the waitresses are carrying hot drinks. But apart from one of them standing a bit too close to me at one point, they were impeccably behaved, if a little bored by the time the grown ups had finished fannying around.
it’s always the grown ups’ fault. Mental health problems, learning difficulties and the like notwithstanding, kids are inherently good. But kids work at a different pace to adults. Like me with my family, if I’m in a restaurant with them too long, I start acting up. That’s usually related to sound levels, repetition and nicotine withdrawal.
When I grow up and I own my own café, well-behaved kids will be welcome between the hours of 8am and 8pm. Their parents, on the other hand, will be barred.
The Snoring Dog 