The Worst. Parents. Ever.

Yesterday evening I was walking across 33rd St. towards Penn Station for the long train ride home when I witnessed a horrible sight; thousands of people streaming out of Penn Station onto Seventh Avenue. The last time I saw a mass of people that large all pouring down an Avenue in one direction, a jet had just slammed into a skyscraper. Thankfully, it was nothing that serious. It was a train station power failure—every commuter's worst nightmare. The dumb masses scattered in search of a way home. There's a ferry across town that goes to New Jersey and there's always the lovely, dignity-sucking busses of Port Authority.

To hell with all that, thought I. These problems have a way of correcting themselves in two or three hours, so instead of running around town in the stupefying heat trying to find an alternate way out of the city, I walked around the corner to the Loew's 34th St. movie theater and saw The Dark Knight instead. It was quite good, although not as good as they say it is. I'll tell you what they're right about, though—Heath Ledger deserves an Oscar. Creepy x 1,000.

By the time I got to the theater the movie had already been playing for about five minutes. Under normal circumstances, that would have been a deal-killer for me. I HATE walking into a movie late, but these were extenuating circumstances and it couldn't be helped. I was a bit euphoric over the quick-thinking originality of my decision to not follow the masses and instead use that time in a more entertaining fashion. Good ideas don’t bubble up in my head very often so when they do, it’s something to celebrate. I flew up four flights of escalators to the theater, threw open the door, chugged up the ramp to the seats and at the top of the ramp, right before you turn left into the seating area, there it was:

A stroller.

What kind of fucking horrible shithead monsters would bring a little baby into a dark, noisy, violent, ugly movie like Batman!? It’s an act of absolute selfishness. A baby is like a sponge. They take in everything that’s going on around them. They were, of course, a very young couple who had gotten careless with their contraception and accidentally had a baby. Children with children. I gave them the hairy eyeball. All throughout the film you could hear the baby babble, cry and coo. I shouldn't judge. I am NOT the greatest parent of all time, that's for damn sure. There are times when I want to run and hide from the suffocating responsibility of it all. But JESUS CHRIST some people need to be STERALIZED. That poor kid doesn't stand a chance.