A Poem for Internet Bullies

I cede to you the field 

salted with the tears of the disillusioned,

the demonized and the downtrodden,

whom you presume to speak over

in your sanctimonious zeal.

May you reap  the enmity you  sow

while I cultivate a hedge 

of I-told-you-so.

TFMB Train Edition

I am sitting on a train, drifting off to sleep.  One of my favorite things to do on trains because I am a chronically sleep deprived insomniac.  15 minutes of quietly being rocked to sleep, and then comes the rude awakening. 

A family boards, with two small children, and naturally chooses to sit right behind me.  These are the new parents, the ones who believe in letting thei kids *express themselves* wherever, whenever, however, without guidance or correction when they deviate from social norms for particular locations.

Like allowing their progeny to howl like banshees a couple feet from other people's ears. Continuouly.  While they shout over their offspring and have a conversation I neither want nor need to be drafted into.

Hint, you entitled, insufferable, lazy pricks:

Manners do not invade your children like a parasite, crawling up through a breach in their skin to colonize their brains, producing adults who can recognize and emulate proper behavior.

No, manners need to be taught.  By parents who aren't so useless as to not deserve the name.

I pity your children.

You aren't even trying.

Meditation, Brooklyn Style

F*ck That!

TFMB Museum Edition

Why is it that people are permitted to wallow through the American Museum of Natural History with triple wide strollers, but a disabled person is denied entry for a rolling backpack?  I can't carry more than 15 lbs per doctor's orders, but the mommy brigade has more rights to access than I do?  Have y'all ever heard of the American withDisabilities Act?  I even offered to check the bag.  You told me to get lost.  And I'm a long term dues paying member.  Maybe not in the future, though.  Why should I support an institution that treats me like a second class citizen? 

My kid has anaphylactic allergies.  He carries allergy safe food.  So he doesn't die.  But he can be denied entry?  You aren't forcing us to patronize the overpriced cafe by saying he can't carry in lunch.  You're saying my kid has to go hungry because there is nothing safe and appropriate on your menu.  Thanks so much for the concern for his welfare. Not.

Today at the Met Breuer, we are with a group.  They are having class in the cafe.  All seats were taken.  My elderly disabled ass was prohibitted from carrying a chair over.

The greeter made me get up and took it away from me. 

Half an hour later, there's a teenager sitting in that chair right where I had been. 

Screw the disabled? Or is it the old?  Am I just not "cool" enough to deserve a chair to sit on so that I am not in pain?  Apparently the Met Breuer thinks so.

Dear petty little insitutional gatekeepers drunk on your imagined authority:

Thanks for making a life lived in constant pain suck more than it has to.  I wish you treble the disability I have to deal with and a third the compassion you showed me.