Mr. Wilson, call your office, or let's kill young Dennis the Menace

Well, the weather outside is frightful, just like the song says, and it is Christmas time here in our happy little burg and it’s warm and cozy in the egregious mold pit wherein I labor for my daily bread. Yes, mothers and their little kids are coming into this dump and the kids are happy and red-cheeked and it’s all really enough to make you want to puke, especially when people who are old enough to know better bid me a good morning.  You’ll pardon me for pointing this out, but it is not a good morning, unless you’re a penguin or one of that increasingly small group of people who think that contracting pneumonia is a fun way to spend your free time.  I don’t mean to sound snappish, he said, lying through his teeth, but people who wish me a good morning when it is clearly not a good morning have a way of getting on my nerves, but I assume you’ve already surmised this.  I also think that I should not have to point out to people who are old enough to know better that their spawn, who are clearly not old enough to know better, cannot use this already more than vaguely annoying workspace to scream, shout, throw stuff, and hit each other over the head with heavy objects until the blood flows and stains the carpeting.  I know that these kids are too young to go to school, but I think that it is incumbent on parents to let their small children know that if they want to do this sort of thing in public then they will have to wait until they are old enough to go to school, where such activities are not only allowed, but in the current educational climate, actually encouraged.  Until then, my desk is not the infield of a pre-K track meet nor is anyone trapped in this place by economic necessity interested in hearing little Johnny’s imitation of a fire alarm.  Tell the kid to can it, dammit!