I took our 4 year-old son to the playground today as I so often do on the weekends.  It was not a particularly unusual day. It was mild for November.  The sun was out.  Kids were running and laughing. My son, as always, was interested in a medley of activities, including soccer, scooting and climbing the playground equipment.

Then he began drawing with his chalk on the blacktop surface of the playground, which he often does. He actually has some artistic sensibilities and abilities, so it’s very fascinating for me to watch him in action.

And, all this was, as I say, not particularly unusual or eventful.

And, then. . .

A young girl ran over my son’s bag of chalk with her scooter. Now accidents happen, so while it was unfortunate and perhaps a bit rude, it was not that upsetting.

Except then she did it again. Just turned herself right around and aimed her scooter right at my son and his chalk with the obvious intention of running over the bag of chalk sticks.

This time, I was pissed. How dare she? And, more than that, how dare her parents allow an obviously, unmannered, uncouth, hellion to run loose in civilization. And, by the way, where were her parents to come running to apologize, to require that she apologize and to instruct her that her behavior was unacceptable?

I’ll tell you where her parents where—nowhere to be found. Or, I should say, nowhere that I could find them. Though undoubtedly they were close at hand doing something important and imperative like checking their Facebook status or texting a friend to say that they were at the playground not watching their child.

It made me realize that you learn a lot about people from how their kids behave at the playground and, more importantly, how they react when their kid misbehaves.  And, I’m here to tell you that most people suck. Their kids suck, they suck and their reactions when caught doing something sucky suck even worse.

I’ll be honest. I was ready to go looking for these people to give them a piece of my mind.  But, then I turned to my son to observe his reaction, and he was unconcerned about the whole thing. His demeanor suggested that his feelings on the subject were something like: “Well, if she doesn’t have manners, that’s her problem in life, not mine.”

That’s when I realized he’s a better person than me, which made me ashamed of myself and proud of him and made me recommit to being a better person. This I commit to doing right away.

As soon as I find those people from the playground to tell them how much they suck.