People I Don't Feel Sorry For

I got an email from someone in the office asking for money for their daughter who was severely injured in a skydiving accident.

This reminded me of a story about Yosemite national park who had banned base jumping off the cliffs. A group of base jumpers decided to do a jump in protest. They would be arrested and have their gear confiscated upon landing, but they wanted to make a "statement."

One of the women decided not to use her best gear because it would end up confiscated by the police. This resulted in equipment failure and, to the horror of the police, onlookers, and her husband who was filming the jump, her Very Gruesome Death.

I guess that showed them.

I have no patience with these things. There is a reason why the police didn't want people base jumping as this woman so idiotically proved. However, I don't think these things should be illegal. If your own safety and the welfare of your kids is less of a priority than some useless thrill, then fine. Remove yourself from the gene pool and see if I care. Just don't ask me to feel sorry for you when you have broken every bone in your body and are paralyzed from the neck down. Or dead.

This is leading to a whole lot of other people I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for.

1. Anyone with an STD (caught through their own carelessness).

2.NASCAR racers (sorry Angi)/Extreme sport participators.

3. Illegal Drug Addicts

4.Parents whose underage children are or were illegal drug addicts.

1. STDs are the most preventable illnesses in the entire world. If you are an adult and you didn't catch it from a cheating partner, then don't ask me to feel sorry for you.

2. Dangerous sports. Everyone knows this. I can't feel sorry for you.

3. You have everyone from the government to churches telling you they are bad. Don't whine to me when you are addicted.

4. I saw a news program about a 16 year old boy who died of a drug overdose. Heroin I think. His parents had found out about his addiction when he was 14, so God only knows how long he'd been doing it. The parents put him in rehab and he proclaimed himself clean. He came back to much the same life he'd had before.

They interviewed his parents who tearfully said he told them he was going out with his friends, then he never came home and they finally got a call from the police or the hospital, I can't remember which.

I usually only pay half-attention to shows featuring weeping parents. I'm usually preoccupied with something else, so I hear the weeping and wailing and feel vague stabs of pity for the afflicted. In this case, I watched the whole thing, and then I was furious. If I had been that interviewer, I would have bitch-slapped both of them. Instead, the voice over marveled at how the children of nice parents with money were becoming addicted to street drugs.

I'll tell you how, bitches. Johnny and Suzy Parent had no balls. God forbid they punish the little darling for breaking curfew. God forbid they give the little darling a curfew at all. He might get mad at them. And God forbid the little darling gets mad them. That can't be healthy. There must be peace at all costs. Well, he's at peace now.

But I have to wonder at parents whose children become drug addicts. How do they not know? I seem to recall many many excuses, but very little acknowledgment of responsibility. Not that I'm claiming to be the world's greatest parent, but I notice when my kids are silent and go running. It usually means an heirloom has been destroyed. I notice when the neighbor brats scream three doors down and I go running to make sure it's not them. I think about my children and knives and I go running to make sure they're out of reach. I hear a story about children strangling themselves in window blinds and I take mine out and burn them in effigy. Well, I don't go that far, but you get the point.

One beating with a belt, and the kid might be alive today. One "No-son-we're-all-going-to-a-movie-tonight" and the kid might be alive today. But in lieu of actual discipline, or actual involvement, those parents let their underage, drug addicted son tell them where he was going and when he'd be back. I want to feel sorry for them, but I just can't.

All the time, I hear things like, "I did drugs and nothing bad happened to me" and "I did drugs, so I can't tell them not to or I'll be a hypocrite."

BULL. SHIT. This has to be the most pathetic excuse I've ever heard and if you believe it, your children should never have children. I smoked pot. I drove drunk ONCE. I also ran around with a butcher knife trying to stab one of our chickens when I was about 6 (don't ask). This doesn't mean I'm going to let my children do any of those things because now that I am an adult, I realize the dangers of those actions. And I don't want anything bad to happen to my kids.