Perils of Standing in Line at Stanstead Airport in London

Standing in line at the Stanstead airport, patiently enduring another interminable English queue (do they queue at Kew Gardens?), I was abruptly awakened from my dreams of the warm curves of the Tuscan hills. The screaming 6 year-old (even money she won’t reach 7) girl who had been tormenting her spineless parents slammed her baby sister’s stroller into my left leg – not once but twice. The first time, her mother meekly protested, “Darling, don’t do that please.”

Darling didn’t listen to mum. Darling never listens to mum or dad, only to the voices of evil in her head. Just like all the other post WWII children in this yaboo infested island. Perhaps the deprivation in the years after the war led to rampant indulgence towards the whines and manipulation of the diminutive demons.

I don’t care anymore. The trickle of blood down my shin was requiring attention and not from Doctor Who or Doctor No. The second time she hit my leg, I took the stroller from her grip, starred straight down into those reptile eyes and yelled, “Watch it!”

There was no freaking darling, dear, or please. I pushed the stroller to her father right behind me. He didn’t say a word. The mother grabbed the finally silent and compliant creature of the netherworld. Everyone in line in front of me had turned in a start to watch. They may have thought that I was an example of a loud, pushy American. But we were no longer tormented by the threat posed by the little monster and her weapon of dubious destruction. If the rest of the world won’t do it, someone’s got to take unilateral action. Wimps!