tuesday-things that displease me

last night i attended a concert by the lovely loon (this was very pleasing)--a wonderful program of flute and piano.

half way through the second movement of the first piece, a horrible woman came in with her two children. now let me be clear, the children were only being children. i do not hold them at fault for being 3 and 6 and unable to sit through a classical program without talking/fussing/keeping still. i blame this woman--who interrupted the program by coming in late--for giving them noisy things to do to occupy their time, for talking incessantly with them, for letting one of them run around unsupervised, for not leaving at the end of the piece when it was clear that her party was ruining the experience for everyone around them, for not leaving at intermission, for teaching her children this level of disrespect for performers is acceptable, and for leaving in the middle of the second to last movement of the evening with so much noise that the whole thing probably should have stopped so that everyone could applaud her leaving.

i understand that children have short attention spans, but if your child cannot sit still for 3 minutes, why bring him to hear an hour of classical music?