you feel lucky, punk?

I know it's uncouth for a middle-aged person to desire retribution on a 5 year old.  Hell, I'm embarrassed to admit it.  I even sometimes contemplate losing sleep over the impulse, but that feeling usually passes, replaced again with a burning desire to give said 5 year old a swirly. (Think toilet water and hair.)

Witnessing the transgression, I'm overcome.  I'm a mother lioness.  And mother lionesses hate to see their cubs hurt, especially by obnoxious 5 year olds who are so entitled, that even at their young age, they don't curb their behavior when an adult is watching.  

I fantasize making a voodoo doll of the little shit and sticking a pin through his eyes.

It's beneath me, I know.  I'm the grown-up, the literal bigger person, but in that moment, watching a small's soul get crushed just a little with some nasty, mean comment, I have an overwhelming urge to forego any thought of chronological age.  I want to channel Dirty Harry, make the little shit pee in his pants, ensuring he'll think twice about ever being that not nice to anyone again.  You feeling lucky, punk?

Come on.  I know you've felt, at least in passing, the same primal urge rise up in you too.

These moments give such clarity as to who these mean smalls are going to grow up to be.  I recognize people I know, people I dislike and, in turn,  I get a clear sense of who they were as smalls.  

Compassion is not the by-product.  I just don't feel it.  Big or small, I wanna punch them out either way.

Somehow, I find the inner strength to control myself.  I dazzle.  

Then, I make a note to self: stay away from the little shit's parents, because I just probably witnessed the kind of people they must be...