After seeing Night at the Museum 2 at the Odeon last night (don’t see it, it was fairly diabolical), I was sat at the bus stop. A man and a lady pulled up in their car, obviously waiting to collect someone from the cinema. Soon enough, two young girls emerged and got into the car, but the parents continued to stay parked. Eventually another girl arrived. She was about 12 years old, and a couple of years older than the other two girls. Just as she was about to get into the car, the second oldest girl (who was about 10) jumped out of the car, ran to a near by bin to throw something away, and then ran back to the car. Upon attempting to make a speedy entrance into the car, she banged her head on the door frame and began to cry. The older girl stood there looking a bit shocked and worried – she didn’t quite understand what had happened. A few moments later both of the parents were nursing the younger girl’s lumpy head and shouting at the older girl, claiming it was her fault that her sister banged her head, because she was late.

Quite how the older daughter’s late arrival caused her sister to bang her head, I don’t know – but these parents were being unnecessarily horrible to the girl, really blaming her for it. Perhaps it was because the Dad had ludicrously hairless legs, and he had years of repressed anger that was suddenly triggered by the hollow sound of his daughter’s head connecting with the metal door frame.

When they eventually drove off, one of the last things the Elven-skinned man said was “good thing it’s fucking padded” – like his daughter might have crushed her skull had there not been a small amount of rubber in the way.

I honestly couldn’t believe how horrible they were being to their eldest daughter though, who clearly had nothing to do with the whole scene.