Friday Stroller Rant

Everyone who visits childfree sites regularly has probably heard many a rant about parents who take up three times their space with giant strollers in public, hit other pedestrians with their strollers, and get annoyed if you ask them to move out of the way. I actually hadn't experienced much of this in NYC until now, but last night on my way home from work something happened that drove me absolutely crazy.

I was just turning my steps onto the block where my apartment is when all of a sudden a man with a stroller turned the corner, and I got stuck behind him. The stroller was huge and he was basically walking next to it while pushing it instead of directly behind it, and moving VERY slowly. The sidewalk isn't very wide just there, so there was no way I could go around him.

The kicker: there wasn't even a baby in the stroller. Oh no. There was a girl, who looked about three years old, standing on the back of it as he pushed her along. You know, the way kids sometimes do with grocery shopping carts. That was why he was moving so slowly.

I was ready to kill. Besides the fact that the girl was clearly capable of walking under her own power, and there was absolutely no need to push her along to begin with, the father (I assume) was completely oblivious to the fact that a line of people was building up behind them on the sidewalk, walking at a snail's pace and looking annoyed. Luckily, I only had to endure this for about three-quarters of a block before I reached my building and went inside.

Parents: we understand that strollers are sometimes a necessary evil, but this kind of stroller behavior is what drives childfree people insane.