Don't give us none of your aggravation, we've had it with your discipline

I'm not normally a confrontational person.  I don't shy away from it, but I don't actively seek it out.  I pride myself on being reasonable and practical and on handling things like a grown-up.

So today was a bit unusual, in that I got into it with three different people.

One of them a 5-year-old.

There's this kid in Zeke's class named Kyler or some such stupid name.  And I'm not even changing the name for purposes of protecting his anonymity in case someone who knows him reads this, because I don't give a shit.  The kid's an asshole.  His mother might as well get him a shirt that says, "Future Rapist" on it.

Numerous parents have told me about how this kid, who is enormous and looks to be at least 6 (and could pass for 7), bullies and harasses their children.  One of Zeke's little friends was so intimidated by the way he would block her path and get in her space that her parents did role-playing exercises with her to show her how to handle him.

He does similar things to Zeke, and it drives me insane.

The first time I witnessed it was a couple of weeks ago.  I was dropping Zeke off in his classroom and Kyler comes up to him and starts saying, "hey, buddy, hey buddy, hey buddy" over and over again, right in Zeke's face.  Zeke asked him to get away from him and not do that, but Kyler persisted.  I said, nicely, "Kyler, he asked you to leave him alone.  Please let him have his space."  But he ignored me.

Zeke's teacher can't stand him.  She yelled at him, "Kyler!  Why do you have to bother him like that every day when you know he doesn't like it??"

I sat with Zeke and tried to tell him that he needed to ignore it and that dealing with people who are annoying is part of life, but he was still upset when I left.

When I dropped the kids off this morning, Zeke and I turned the corner to go into his room.  Kyler and this other kid, Evan, were there.  When they saw Zeke, Kyler sneered, "we're not going to be buddies with Zeke today.  We don't want to play with him."

I whipped my head around and fixed him with an angry stare.  "What did you just say?"

"We're not going to play with Zeke today."

"Good," I snapped.  "He doesn't want to play with you anyway.  He only likes playing with kids who are nice.  He doesn't play with mean, nasty kids like you."

I had had it with him being a dick to my son.

Then today after work, I was sitting on a bench at the bus stop, reading a book.  This lady sat down on the bench next to me and immediately started some ridiculous diatribe about how immigrants and foreigners are bleeding this country dry and there are laws on the books that give foreigners $30,000 in cash, tax-free, while good hard-working Americans pay taxes and get fleeced by these freeloaders and blah blah blah.

For a while I tried to ignore it and just focus on my book, but when she got to the part about tax-free money for immigrants, I just couldn't hold it in anymore.

"That is absolutely not true.  Nobody gives immigrants wads of cash when they come to this country."

"Oh, it's true, it's true.  It's been on the books since Vietnam."

"You are spreading falsehoods.  There is no law like that.  Fercrissakes, I'm married to an immigrant - I can promise you that no one is throwing wads of government cash at us!"

She kept insisting it was true, and finally I yelled, "I'VE HAD IT.  I can't stand listening to your bullshit anymore!"  And I got up and walked away and waited for my bus where I couldn't hear her anymore.

The kicker was dealing with the douchebag next-door neighbor.

We are in the middle of redoing our horrible upstairs bathroom (and it's going to look so pretty when it's done, you guys).  So we don't have a working shower or bathtub.  When I got home from work, J was out back with the kids in the hot tub (which was lukewarm) in an effort to get the kids somewhat clean after school.  When he was done, he left the hot tub cover folded up and leaning partly up against the fence that we share with Douchebag.  The fence that he's never bothered to finish (and we've offered to pay to finish it, but he ignores us), so there's essentially nothing dividing our two yards.

Later on, we looked outside and noticed that the cover had been tossed over onto our grass.

When J went outside to replace the cover, Douchebag was out there and muttered something at J.  J quietly said, "fuck you."  At that point, the kids had started to follow J outside.  Then Douchebag started ranting and raving and swearing at J, and the kids were freaked out.

I was done.  I shuffled the kids inside and then went back out.

"HEY!!  WATCH YOUR FUCKING MOUTH, YOU JERK!  MY KIDS ARE HERE.   JUST SHUT YOUR GODDAMNED MOUTH!"

I know.  The irony isn't lost on me, either.  The whole neighborhood could probably hear me.

"Oh yeah?  Well do you know what J said to me when he came out here?  He said 'fuck you'."  Tattling on J like I'm his mother or something.  What an idiot.

"I don't give a shit!  And you deserved it, after the way you've treated us since we moved in here.  NOW TURN AROUND AND GET BACK IN YOUR HOUSE AND LEAVE US ALONE!  NOW!!!"

He yelled some more, but by then I had gone back inside and was trying to calm the children.  And myself.

I don't know.  I guess it was one of those days.  Which I never have, but who knows.

What I'm saying is, if you have a bone to pick with me, now is probably not the time.