The Dark Side of Kids

I went to the Stars game yesterday, and I sat in my own tickets (so with the common man) to see the Stars play the Penguins. As you know, I'm a pretty big Stars' fan...and as you might know, the Stars are struggling at the moment. They ended up losing 4-1 (and it wasn't that close)...and this story will be from a "Drew is already annoyed" perspective.

It didn't take me until the national anthem to find out that there's some 3-year-old kid one row behind me. As soon as the lights go down for the anthem, I hear "why is everyone quiet? why is everyone standing? what is everyone doing? why is everyone standing? why is everyone standing? why is everyone standing?!?"

I forgive the kid because I like kids, and this particular kid is getting his first taste of hockey. And maybe he's never been to a professional sporting event and doesn't understand that we all stand quietly for the national anthem before the game.

But that's not it. Seconds into the game, I hear "what's the score? who's winning? who's losing? who's winning now? who has the puck? who has the puck now? who's winning? are we cheering for Dallas or Pittsburgh?"

If you need more help picturing this, he had a loud and kinda high-pitched voice (I had to check to decipher gender) and a bit of a lisp. Got a good idea?

The kid also doesn't understand the scoreboard. At the Stars' games, they put the score on the scoreboard and they put shots on goal on the video monitors. And the kid, throughout the game, thinks that the shots on goal is the score. He cheers at the first shot on goal for each team. Cheers when they get to 5 and 10 and 15 and 20. And comically confuses 6 and 9 at one point.

The dad, God bless his poor soul, is mostly quiet. He doesn't correct the kid most of the time, and he usually makes his demon spawn ask the question several times before he'll answer it. Maybe after years of annoyance, he was able to block the kid out. If not, he's just as much to blame as the kid.

And this went on...the...entire...game.

There was never a moment of peace. Never a moment without a question of who has the puck, or why people are clapping, or who's winning, or what's the score, or who to cheer for, or what's going on. Every few seconds, there was some question, and every time it was repeated two, three, four, five times.

Meanwhile, my team's playoff hopes are slowly getting torn apart. And to make matters worse, the dad was a Penguins' fan.

To summarize, it sucked.

And when they finally left with six minutes, everyone in the section looked around in amazement. We all congratulated ourselves for surviving Hurricane Evan (or Kevin - the father was surprisingly quiet) and bathed ourselves in sweet, sweet silence.

And I'll repeat myself: I like kids. I have fun hanging out with kids, and I think I'd make a pretty good dad. But I'm not sure I could stand a kid like this one...it would drive me absolutely crazy. And in today's society where everything is medicated and punishment of any kind seems to be cruel and unusual...I don't know whether to blame the father, the son, or the holy society.

All I know is that, if I have a kid like that, he might "accidently" get left at the bus station. Or kidnapped by "some Puerto Rican guy" like Butters on South Park. Because I couldn't take it for two hours at a hockey game...I definitely couldn't take it for 50-something years.

Because kids that are annoying as kids turn into teenagers that are annoying. And adults that are annoying. Hall monitors and student council members and IRS auditers.

I did, however, realize that people are generally good. Because if they weren't, that kid would've been thrown off the third deck before the end of the first period. And there would've been 300 witnesses that said he pulled a gun on everyone and jumped.