A little over a week ago, Edinburg had its Night of Lights festival. This year, compared to the years I worked it with Sigma Tau Delta, was drab. Boring, if you will. The booths were smooshed together and pretty much nothing was interesting. But let’s face it, I was only doing this for the parade.

We got there a little late, mid-parade, and found an empty spot near the railroad tracks. I carried Shaun while Jeanna, Isabel, and Justin shouted out at the passers-by in jubilation. Haven’t never been to a Night of Lights parade, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t too  exciting, but at least we got to do something as a family. And it might have been a tad more enjoyable if a certain woman hadn’t made a bigger fuss than necessary. I’ve left out a part when I said we found an empty spot. What I meant to say was, we found an empty spot just just to the right, but in front, of a family sitting down. I know. Who the fuck sits down at a parade? If you’re not a child under the age of five, an elderly person, a veteran, a person with some physical set back, etc., you shouldn’t be sitting down at a fucking parade. This family didn’t get that memo.

Because I’m standing and carrying Shaun, I found myself moving a lot. Well, not majorly moving, because the drift was unnoticeable. For me, anyway. I get a tap on the back and there’s this circle of a man asking me to please step out of the way. He’s pretty polite about it, so I side step and smile not realizing that I was being an asshole. And only after he asks nicely, and only after I apologize, does his wife perk up as if suddenly there’s some form of conflict that us men have no idea has come about. She makes a bigger scene than necessary, claiming that since they were there since four-thirty that they have some right to this public place and we best be asteppin’ before she opens a can of whoop-ass on us. Jeanna retorts that it wasn’t intentional and she should go fuck herself (my words, not hers, and I’m only coming to that conclusion based on tone alone). Apparently, I was blocking their son’s view, who, by the way, wasn’t even watching the fucking parade because he was dicking around on his cell phone. After we step aside, two women take our place (karma’s a bitch, I’ve been told), and the woman doesn’t mouth off at them. Instead, there’s a silent resignation because she knows there’s no unwritten rule about a woman getting up in another woman’s face.

And it’s knackering to think that someone can ruin her family’s fun, and that of strangers, because she feels she was entitled to something that wasn’t even hers. I get it, it’s basic politeness to not be a jerk, but that wasn’t even the case. I bet she’s the type of person who buys concert tickets and sits down at the show. No one does that. Not at most concerts, anyway.

And she isn’t the first, either. There have been a few times at the stadium where the woman decides to be aggressive when her boyfriend/husband/whatever is passive and polite. There might be a rule that states a guy can’t be physically aggressive towards a woman, but there is not rule that states a woman cannot be told off if she’s being a bitch. However, I wasn’t about to hock venom at this piece of trash because I wasn’t there to argue. Unlike her, I was there to show my son a good time.

After pondering why such women exist, I think the answer is simple (and this all goes to Luna’s credit because she’s the one that clarified it for me). She’s probably the type of person who sits around all day watching “reality” TV and figures that life must have serious amounts of drama in order to be considered a life. So to you people out there, turn off the fucking TV and stand up at parades.