Crocodile Jeers

ABCNEWS.com : ‘Croc Hunter’ Irwin Won’t Face Charges

This just in from Beerwah (where else?):

Steve Irwin demonstrates how not to feed a baby to a crocodile – he used a stunt chicken instead. He now joins the growing roster of celebrity baby danglers.

“Friday’s footage on Australian TV showed Irwin feeding a dead chicken to a 13-foot crocodile named Murray while he held Bob in the other hand. Murray snapped up the meat.

“Good boy, Bob,” Irwin said, according to the tabloid Herald Sun. He then balanced the boy on the ground after the crocodile had retreated to the water.

Irwin’s American wife, Terri, had handed the baby over to Irwin in the enclosure and giggled at the spectacle.

“It was a wonderful sensory experience for him (the baby). He dug it,” she said.”

A crocodile named Murray was not harmed in the performance of this stunt.

I always thought a “wonderful sensory experience” in the context of crocodiles had to do with a nice pair of shoes and maybe a matching bag. Clearly, this is parenting on the edge of fashion (if not reason).

Scenes from Aisle Nine

You go to the grocery store expecting to buy some fish for dinner and maybe a little Pinot Grigio to go with, and you end up with a little family psychodrama thrown in for free. It happens all the time to the few, the proud, the childfree.

I went to Dominick’s with my husband the other night to pick up a few things just before New Year’s Eve. As I walked in, I noticed a little girl in some kind of Renaissance-theme red velvet party dress playing with the automatic door – you know, running back and forth in front of the sensor and making it swing open repeatedly. Smart thing to do if you want to sustain a nasty full-body smackdown, but I noticed other family members grabbing her and getting her under some semblance of control, so I went on into the store.

I gradually became aware that this family was of the “constantly squabbling public spectacle” variety – they were all dressed in expensive looking party clothes, both girls were hyper and running around either grabbing things off of shelves or crying for things snatched out of their hands and put back. Both parents were loudly involved in correcting their childrens’ bad behavior, which only wound the kids up toward what looked like impending tag-team tantrums.

Surprisingly, it was the mom who had the first tantrum – she started screaming “I’m sick of this!! You’re driving me crazy!! How many times to I have to tell you to stop making me crazy!!” to the younger one. Her husband started hollering at both kids, and then they all lost their cool in the frozen food aisle. From what I could tell, they were arguing over which frozen pizza the family would enjoy for their New Year’s dinner.

Yep, that makes parenthood an attractive prospect. No, thank you, I’d rather nail my head to the coffee table.

We grabbed the stuff we needed and lit out for the express lane, grateful for the prospect of a quiet New Year’s dinner in front of the TV.

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