Greenpoint Craptacular

I had quite the busy weekend. My Saturday morning started at 8:30 a.m. assembling and collating all the material to be sent along with the angry missive to our landlord. This packet ended up being about a quarter of an inch thick. It was not an enjoyable task, but it was a necessary one, nonetheless.

After purchasing the envelope and postage for this turd, my husband and I rushed to the Bust Craftacular to meet my buddy, Judy McGuire. The Warsaw Ballroom was where we were to make a transaction for a really gorgeous clock I made. This came to pass— after I beheld the horror that is the ‘hip’ Greenpoint/Williamburg parenting cadre.

Let it be known here and now that I do not like:

1. crowds
2. noise
3. crotchlings in all-terrain strollers (if your stroller is bigger than me, it need not be)
4. the parents who see fit to bring the aforementioned crotchlings in said strollers to venues best left for adult consumption

I could have tolerated the loud music, the crowds OR the stroller set individually, but being assaulted by all three at once proved to be a hell for all five senses that even Dante could not begin to fathom.

It’s a matter of space: my personal and psychological space. When did my allotted amount of space become fair game to affluent breeders/space pirates with crotchlings? I’d really like to know. Perhaps, to bastardize Desmond Tutu, this is why:

When the developers came to Greenpoint they had the lawyers and we had the space. They said “Let us prey.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had eviction papers and they had the space (air rights, FAR, etc.).

But I digress…

My point is this: why won’t these parents act, well, like parents? Any parent worth his/her salt would have the horse-sense to know that the Bust Craftacular may not be a good place to take their small children. If not as a simple act of common courtesy to the other patrons, because the loud-ass music may be unsettling, if not downright damaging, to their toddlers/infants.

The same logic applies to the happy hours some bars have to pander to the ‘hip’ mommy set. Why can’t these women just stay home and ask little “Timmy” or “Caitlin” to “Mix a drink for mommy because she had a hard day” like the civilized folk? If this practice was good enough for Bette Davis, rest assured it sure as fuck is good enough for them.

Start ’em out while they’re young, I say (because the children are our future): one parent’s alcohol consumption may bear fruit in a lucrative career as a bartender for the child later. Why bother preparing “Timmy” or “Caitlin” for a white-collar career today that will be out-sourced tomorrow? The service industry is our nation’s future, and consequently, their future.

In three or four years I imagine the public schools in Greenpoint/Williamsburg will be inundated with hard-of-hearing children with an attention span of one nano-second— but they’ll mix cocktails guaranteed to knock the teacher on her ass. They’ll cut lines like a pro to boot. The previous may be nice fringe benefits given how badly teachers are paid.

Slipster parents: open up your wallets and hire a babysitter or get off your respective asses and start a babysitting pool like a grown-up. The rest of us (grown-ups) are not the least bit amused by your child’s antics, your adolescent sense of entitlement and overall inability to act your age.

The last time my husband and I ate at Taco Chulo (at 8:30 p.m.) we had the pleasure of being entertained by a todder running amok. This boy climbed atop the sofa, the coffee table and a four foot tall ledge. Had he fallen, he would have cracked his head open or broken an arm. Where was mommy? She was eating and laughing her ass off because it was “cute”.

Until this houseape came to our table (matchbox car in hand, snot flowing from nose) and babbled gibberish at us, anyway. That’s was when (with glowing mommy pride) mamasan sauntered over to our table and told us (while we were eating for chrissakes) that her vaginal dumpling wanted to know what we dressed up as for Halloween.

I told her that what I dressed up as (for Halloween) was unsuitable content for a child to hear and she left. I applaud my husband’s and my own restraint: we were pissed. After she left, my husband and I tossed around answers to this question we would have preferred to give:

1. A pedophile
2. Your REAL daddy
3. Your REAL mommy
4. Your aborted sister/brother who lives in heaven now
5. Your momma’s pimp
6. A child protective services caseworker

This is Greenpoint, not Disneyland (or Levittown, for that matter).

Williamsbreeders: if you want a child-centric/hip-wombyn environment, move to Park Slope. They’ll be happy to take you. You can argue over the gender-ramifications of a child’s hat (via craigslist) to your heart’s contentment. Otherwise, the next time you bring your child into my Greenpoint(less) world, he/she may get a crash course in ‘adult’ repartee.

I may very well show your kid this, which will undoubtedly result in him/her having bed-wetting episodes and night terrors for years.

Miss Heather

P.S.: At least my trek to the Craftacular netted me this constellation of dog shit I call the Guernsey Street Octet…

and these select morsels of bum shit just around the corner on Nassau Avenue.

Every dark cloud has a brown lining in New York Shitty.