Utter Stupidity

Sometimes, you can see something happen right in front of your face and yet still not quite believe it is happening .... not believe what your eyes are telling you. This might be because it is something surprising, amazing, unbelievable or shocking, disturbing, troubling .... or just plain stupid.

Travelling home from work a few days ago, I came across just such a sight. I was pushing my bike along the pavement , in a complete world of my own as usual. Then I noticed that there was a queue of traffic on the road beside me - a number of buses were at a standstill, but I could not see what was stopping them ... the traffic was flowing further down the road. Waking a little further down , I came across the reason why - someone was lying in the road. At first I thought they might have been hit by a car or even one of the buses ... then the body suddenly got up, ran along the road laughing and flicking V-signs, then laid down in the road again !! I could hardly believe what I was seeing ....

On the pavement in front of me were a group of about eight or nine boys - they could not have been older than 10 or 12 ... maybe younger. They were being loud, shouting at each other and pushing each other around ( don't kids just talk at a normal volume anymore ? ) .... being boys, larking around - nothing unusual there. ( I don't know why, but groups of kids make me feel uneasy ... you never seem to see a group of just a few ... there always seems to a a whole tribe of them ... never quite sure what they might do or act ) . One of the group had decided to break off, and accompanied by shouts of encouragement, and hoots of laughter from the rest of the group, was laying down and rolling around in the middle of the road - and in the direct path of one of the buses - then getting up , moving along and doing it again!!. I shouted at them, asking them what the hell they thought they were doing, and did they have a death wish .... all I got was a mouth full of expletives and one finger salutes in return before the "body" got up and they all ran off into the night.

I still cannot quite believe that they could be so stupid .... that almost getting themselves run over was some sort of fun ! It was only luck ( and the good judgement of the bus driver ) that ensured that that child wasn't . I know kids can get bored ... but that bored ? ... enough that getting run over is better?. Would he prefer his parent(s) to be paying for a funeral rather than buying him Christmas presents perhaps ? ... I don't think so !