The Screech

Having not grown up in Hillmomba during Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's formative years, you might not be familiar with a song called The Streak. It was played often during Mrs. HM's high school years, when streaking was a nationwide fad. In fact, there's even a picture in our high school yearbook with a BMOC (that's a big man on campus) posing in a simulated streaking photo, holding a big industrial gray garbage can in front of his (later-revealed to anyone who asked) gym-shorted private area.

Our topic today, sadly, is not about streaking. It's about SCREECHING! Oh, how I wish it was only public nudity, and not public high-decibel spoiled-bratness. I just got to thinking about how a song could be written about The SCREECH. Not by me. I'm no musician. I could do the lyrics, but I'm too lazy, and trying to recover from ear damage.

Seriously! I think that SCREECH damaged my ears! I was fine until I got home, but then, once safely ensconced on my broken rolly chair in front of New Delly in my dark basement lair...I started experiencing vertigo. The room seemed to spin for a moment. Then steady itself. Off and on all evening. I really think the vibrations from the SCREECH upset the equilibrium of my hammer/anvil/stirrup.

It all started in The Devil's Playground. I was minding my own business, pushing my cart/walker with only my right arm, allowing my left arm to swing normally, so as to facilitate the mechanism of my Shaming Bracelet. I can do that in The Devil's Playground, because their carts generally roll in a straight line. Not so in Save A Lot, where they dart from side to side like minnows you might try to catch with your bare hands for sustenance if you were on one of those survival shows.

Yes, there I was, on the condiment aisle, seeking a giant jar of green olives that go so well with my lunchtime pinwheels, the pinwheels themselves being a disappointment, because there was only ONE Chicken Bacon Ranch, causing me to add three Turkey and Cheddar to my cart. I was at the middle of the aisle when I heard the SCREECH. That kid had a healthy set of lungs! It must have been four aisles over, still in the deli/produce area, but I heard it like that little banshee was at my shoulder.

As I continued to shop, that untamed howler monkey continued to SCREECH. Now, there's whining, and there's petulant crying, and there's squealing tantrum nap-time noise. But this was most definitely a SCREECH. Not from a baby, not from a toddler, but from a child who should know better. In fact, the foister upon the world of this human get-out-of-the-swimming-pool-horn darted her cart in front of me from the cereal aisle as I headed back up front.

That SCREECHER was a little girl around 4 years old.

SWEET GUMMI MARY! How are kids supposed to learn what is acceptable in public if they are allowed to do whatever strikes their fancy in public? It only took one time for me to pack up a misbehaving Genius and carry him screaming to our pre-T-Hoe Ford Aerostar Minivan. Left the cart right there in the aisle, and whisked him away, past prying eyes, out to his car seat, where he was buckled in, told that we would do this every time he couldn't behave, and driven home.

Yes. That was very inconvenient for Mrs. HM. But it had to be done. That shot of reality did not need a booster for about 10 years, when Genius got into an argument with The Pony over which fast-food establishment we'd be going to after school, and I drove right past all of them to feed those very apologetic-too-late boys Mom-food back at the Mansion.

I don't know why people are afraid to say NO to their kids these days. I'm not advocating a beating, or emotional abuse. Just set limits and enforce them consistently. Please. So nobody else loses their balance from ear damage caused by the SCREECH.

Or maybe that red-ink-pen plastic lid that I jammed in my right ear to scratch an itch...