Pesky Kids (From Your Local Guardian)

Pesky Kids

4:31pm Friday 21st December 2007

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:Caution - Rant Ahead:

Every morning I wake up at 7.15, press snooze twice, throw my clothes on, ram in some Coco Pops and then run around performing some (or all) of the usual household tasks: taking some meat out of the freezer for tonight’s dinner, putting on yet another load of washing, folding yesterday’s laundry...

I digress.

Every day I leave the house at 8:02am - having turned off the heating and lights - and I double lock the door behind me. I come out of my gate and approach my first obstacle – a cluster of disinterested youths in school uniforms. They huddle around the post box on a fairly narrow section of the pavement, blocking the path of anyone who is unfortunate enough to live nearby. Most days I have to walk in the road to get past, or scrape through the overhanging hedge of a neighbouring garden. The other day I saw a man apologise to them as he asked for permission to post a letter.

As I pass this group, other herds of kids walk towards me, again spread across the pavement in a quest to cause maximum inconvenience. In a rather weak game of chicken, I try to hold steadfast – but inevitably I end up squashed into a wall or walking into the path of a car. Maybe it’s deemed to be uncool to be polite and step aside so that people can pass. On the other hand, I’m quite a small person – do they just not see me?

Well until I can find a solution (perhaps fitting the post box with one of those new sonic crowd-dispersal devices), I’ll just have to walk in the road and only post letters at weekends...