Urban Annoyance #1440- Prams

In this time of great world problems what with that bad thing that happened in Japan and that other, ongoing bad thing happening in Libya and that ongoing bad thing about some song about what day of the week it is (thank you for keeping me abreast of memes Twitter!), sometimes, it’s nice to go away from this bad news and focus on something a little less harrowing, like prams.

When walking down a road, British people, when they encounter another person/people walking towards them, do the delightful shuffle from one side to the other, to move out of the way of the other person, as that other person attempts to do the exact same thing, leading to much to-ing and fro-ing. Cue nervous smiles, apologies, a distinct lack of eye contact and industrial size loads of embarrassment. All lovely, quaint and endearing.

But something happens when one of the groups of people are pushing along an infant in a chair on wheels in front of them. Suddenly, they are completely incapable of moving to one side of the pavement to allow space for both parties to pass, instead ploughing a path straight through what is in front of them; human being, animal, brick walls, lampposts, the exaggeration for comic effect, everything.

Essentially, the pram becomes some kind of battering ram, or a snow plough, to be used to move people out of the way. Obviously, it is not much of a physical battering ram as it is neither particularly big, nor particularly strong and a ram with a baby as a key component will be largely ineffectual, what with those soft spots and all. It is more of a mental battering ram as walking into baby transportation devices is generally frowned upon by society for some reason.

Unfortunately, parents seem to take advantage of this rule and use it to their advantage. Yes child-rearers, you have reproduced successfully, congratulations for fulfilling your biological role as an animal, don’t use it as some kind of weapon, least of all when you do it in tandem and two mothers walk side by side down the road, advancing with all the menace of a tank driver in Tiananmen Square (and no amount of hand signal stop signs is going to put them off), leaving one to take evasive by diving in to the road.

God knows what happens when two sets of parents advance on each other, maybe they just keep walking and some platform 10 and 3/4’s magic occurs where they walk through each other and continue on with their lives.

It’s all a far cry from babies being left to their own devices out on the farm and being eaten by foxes (although that does still happen…too soon?) or doing their fair share of the harvesting work, instead of being used in psychological, pavement-based urban warfare.