After leaving the amusement park, my boyfriend and I drove around looking for a place to eat. Spending the day surrounded by angry parents and their selfish sprog caused us to work up an appetite.

As we continued to drive around, we realized that each restaurant shared a characteristic: the parking lots were filled with sport-utility vehicles and mini-vans.

Stopping at any of those places meant an hour of children whining that they want McDonald's, while their parents loudly talked over them. Because, as we all know, the purpose of having children is to ignore them and delight fellow patrons with the children's "quiet fussing."

My boyfriend and I then discussed the need for these large vehicles. If a couple uses Pergonal or any other litter-producing fertility treatment, I understand the importance of driving a tank with a narrow wheel base and propensity to flip over, thus crushing the occupants of the vehicle. It's an easy way to get rid of a few members of the brood.

A couple with one or two children can easily fit in a sedan or station wagon, and if they want to off the kids, it's easier to drive a Honda Civic into a lake.

Of course, most parents are far more passive than Susan Smith, and they just let the saplings take off their seatbelts and hop around the backseat of the Explorer. Darwin would be proud.

And these SUVs generally have such delightful bumper stickers as "My Child Could Be The Future President!" Future roadkill, maybe.

On the subject of bumper stickers, what's with people who can't keep their ideologies in line? I saw a breedermobile with a bumper sticker that plainly stated that "Only one person comes out of an abortion clinic alive," and underneath it, one that read "Forget milk. Got beer?"

Although if I were pro-life and couldn't figure out the complexities of birth control, hence single-handedly populating Hog Hollow, I'd probably turn to the bottle, too.

So, my boyfriend and I drove around for a half-hour before settling on a small Italian restaurant. Outside of the restaurant were luxury cars, erroneously leading us to believe that upon entering the restaurant, we would find the smiling faces of adults.

Instead, we should have realized that luxury cars meant the restaurant was full of spoilt yuppie children. Children who, naturally, were already enrolled in SAT prep classes but couldn't tell you what the fuck "discipline" means.

When we walked into the foyer, I peered into the dining area and saw only one table occupied with little beasts, and they appeared to be well-behaved.

It was the first time during our vacation that we encountered relative silence. No demands for chocolate cake. No banging forks on tables. No cries of "look at me! look at me!" We sat down, and basked in the silence.

A silence that lasted an entire 10 minutes. My boyfriend and I attract unruly children. They're like cats who cling to those who are most allergic to them. And this Italian restaurant was not going to be a safe haven for us.

Within 10 minutes of sitting down, a boisterous mish-mash of children, infants and adults piled into the restaurant. They blew in like a hurricane, and never downgraded to a tropical depression.

The itty-bitty babies wailed to the point I swore my eardrums would cease functioning. The children burst into a chorus of "Tell us what we want! Tell us what we want! Tell us what we want!" I wanted to slit their throats, but the adults were oblivious to the cacophony.

Shortly after demanding their parents tell them what they want, the blessed Only Son Who Will Carry On The Family Name began to scream "No, no, no!" I glanced in his direction and muttered loud enough for the parents to hear, "Too bad your mother didn't say that, kid."

Mrs. Stretched Pussy shot a nasty look my way, whiler her husband appeared to be stifling laughter. Wonder who wears the pants in that family?

The obscenely noisy children provoked me to wave the waitress over. In my tipsy state, I assumed she could tell the family to gag their kids. But the waitress referred to the children as "bairns," and I realized the silly bint was (more than likely) a Geordie.

(And my fellow students claimed we'd never use the information gleaned from a History of the English Language class.)

She was here to steal a perfectly good waitressing job from an uneducated, single American mother, so I knew she wouldn't want to jeopardize her work visa by telling the family their children were bothering other diners.

I contented myself by creating and playing the "I Like Children" game with my boyfriend. It started off simply:

"I like children bound and gagged"

"I like children hung from a tree."

It progressed to two-line prose:

"I like children covered in spunk; I like children best when I'm drunk"

"I like children doused in gas; I like children like a priest at High Mass."

In the end, we invented little ditties:

"I'm in a pizza place, with nary a smile on my face; children are crying, my patience they're trying, and I want to spray them with mace."

It passed the time and squelched our homicidal urges.

As we were preparing to leave, I glanced over at the obnoxious clan and proving that God is a breast-feeding teen mother who practices attachment parenting, one of the women was "discretely" nursing. (Note to breast-feeding women: that slurping sound your prized possession makes is a giveaway that you're nummy-numming.)

My nerves were frazzled, so I retreated to the comfort and silence of the hotel room. Rain Girl was under lock and key, and my boyfriend went for a dip in the lake, so I flipped on the television for entertainment.

I'm used to home shopping shows with low production values, but even I wasn't prepared for a station that sold goods via a phone auction. A jug (yes, a jug) sold for 17 dollars, while an "antique" collection of Readers Digest magazines went for an astounding 12 dollars. Is this what Upstate people do for fun?

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

The Misanthropic Bitch does not encourage feedback. You are not as clever, witty or hate-filled as you think you are. All submissions, though, become property of The Misanthropic Bitch. Submissions may be published or reused in any other medium. Think before you hit send.