This afternoon, we went for a walk in the woods at a nearby trailhead. It being a particularly popular trailhead and a sunny Sunday to boot, there were a fair number of other hikers, everything from stick-toting pros to barely-walking infants. Despite the traffic and attendant noise, we spotted a few snakes, a handful of birds and squirrels, and two dragonflies. Among the two-legged fauna, we spotted torn-black-hose Goth chicks, smokers too selfish and oblivious to reconsider carrying smoldering ashes into a tinder-dry forest (who later flicked their dead butts into a lake), and a man yakking on a cell phone and completely oblivious to where he was. (Ironically, he was doing so as he wandered past a trail marker bearing a quote from Thoreau, in which he wondered why anyone would go into the woods if their mind wasn't there with them.) But, disturbing as some of these were, they were nothing compared to the Monster in the Woods.
She had blond curly hair and carried a stuffed blue parrot. She couldn't have been older than four or five. As she walked along the trail, she pointed her finger at everything - stumps, trees, her family, and other hikers. And she repeated the same phrase.
"Bang! I kill you. Bang! I kill you."
"It's just a kid thing," her dad laughed as we stared in disbelief.
The look on that girl's face said it wasn't just a kid thing. She knew she was saying something nasty. She knew she would get away with it. And she enjoyed it. Too much. A little brat with no parental control, completely desensitized to guns and the concept of killing anything and anyone she points at.
Beware the Monster in the Woods.
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2 comments:
Interesting.
When I was kid-free, my impression would have been the same, I think.
As a parent, I'm torn. It could be what you think or it could just be a kid thing which they have tried to correct but failed because she delighted in the attention she got when she said it. Unfortunately, sometimes the correction just encourages them more because it's attention. Thankfully, neither of mine has "shot" anyone yet but it's coming, I'm sure.
PPG - The thing is, I know I wouldn't have done that sort of thing in public because I would've quickly had a tanned hide and a month of time out. The way the parents just laughed it off... and the look on that kid's face... still very, very disturbing. This is a kid who will find Daddy's gun and play "Bang!" with her friends, not understanding why everyone gets upset.
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