Go Ahead Kid, Touch The Bike...

I am sitting outside Starbucks trying to enjoy what can only be described as a ridiculously gay coffee (Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte - just screams italics, don't it?) and waiting with heightened anticipation for the moment when one of the kids loitering in the parking lot touches my bike and burns the skin off of his hand. I'm not a violent or angry person by any means, but at this point I'd be completely at peace with this, because it would teach these kids to keep their hands off of other people's things, especially if those things are Harley's and those people are bad-ass road-weary bikers in no mood for dealing with other people's kids.

Apparently their parents, who are sitting in the car right there are incapable of doing this.

Live Blogging Update: One of the kids just reached out to put a finger on the bike, and fortunately (for him) his mother (an obviously exhausted young woman who also seems to wish these kids were elsewhere) yelled at him.

I was considering for a minute yelling at him myself, but as scary as I am when I'm mad I can't compete with 1st degree burns.

I wonder if I could be sued if a kid burned himself from touching my bike in a public parking lot. Probably. That's an unfortunate statement about the legal system in this country. It would be considerably less bad-ass for bikers around the country to have to put a "Please Do Not Touch - VERY HOT" sign on my bike every time we park. It's bad enough that the law requires us to wear these absurd giant mushroom-sized helmets.   

I know that kids are hard to raise. I know kids are hard to keep track of. I know this all first hand. But I also know that this means that parking lots are not an ideal place to let your kids hang out. It's that simple.

The root of the problem here is that people with kids feel like they have the same rights as everyone else. I would submit that they do, but only if their kids can behave in a manner appropriate for the social situation. I don't frolic in parking lots (I reserve my frolicking for parks and sidewalks in he bar district) and I certainly don't expect kids to know this rule without being reminded, but if parents can't do sid reminding with any effect, then as far as I am concerned they all lose the right to be in parking lots.

Or restaurants. If I'm paying good money to eat at a restaurant, I don't want to hear your baby crying while I do it. It's a baby. It doesn't need to be at a restaurant, it doesn't even eat solid food. I hate to say it, but if you are the baby's momma or daddy, then you don't get to go to restaurants either unless you can find someone to watch your baby.

I didn't make you have that kid. Don't make me have to listen to it while I am eating.

And then of course there are the kids that stand in the booths at IHOP and stare at you over the back of the chair. It's cute and adorable for exactly as long as it should take the kid's parents to notice and correct the child, after that point it is only rude and annoying.

Tonight I paid $4.25 for this gay latte, with the expectation that I was also purchasing a seat in this wooded parking lot where as to enjoy the cool peaceful Spring air while I blog about how wonderful and beautiful the world was today. Instead, my nerves frayed 5 seconds after sitting down because of: kids screaming at each other, kids chasing one another around my bike (if it gets knocked over someone's face is getting introduced to hot exhaust pipes - just saying), kids oblivious to cars trying to back out of parking spots, and kids chasing an unleashed dog up and down the sidewalk where I am sitting, otherwise generally being unchecked suburban nuisances.

Never mind the legal system, its a sad state when a bad-ass biker gets terrorized by a bunch of 6 year olds in a Starbucks parking lot.

I guess I'm not as bad-ass or scary as I thought I was...