Shih

Sunday, noon in my favorite coffee-shop in the middle of Boston: Somehow there are five little kids in here, a dad and a mom--or I guess more accurately, two adults in tow. The kids are slightly below cub-scout age (two or three are girls).

I find this highly disruptive. Mostly, because, you just don't see toddlers in the city. At least, not on this side of it. Second, because kids voices have strange pitches and frequencies. Thirdly, they are more kinetic than necessary. Fourthly, and overall, this just isn't a kid-type space. (Somehow like all postwar American I'm conditioned to percieve suburbanesque environments ad kid-friendly spaces, and urbanized enviroments as not. This is obviously bogus and pure historical accident, a result of General Motors' propaganda, but here in Allston Village the contrast is highlighted. Also, there are like, five of them: when there are not many they are no longer ornamental; as kids are in Brookline; they are a potential army.

But the kids are tolerable because it's not their fault. It's their parents fault. Why are there adults in here, and who in their right mind would be one, and why do they look so much older than I am, even though reason tells me they're aren't; the kids are no older than Joe Tadie's oldest. The father-figure very much looks like a dad who will soon be a father, an Irish-American looking guy. (He's wearing a wedding band). He's reasonably athletic, but you can see the spirit of gravity surrounding him. His hair is more salt than pepper, in a thoroughly normal cut. All signs are that the kids own him.

Why would anybody become an adult? Especially like that? It's the saddest thing I've ever seen. How could you ever be content on a Sunday morning if you did that?