I could list a number of examples of this behaviour but I'll limit myself to two. It relates to a friend of my husband's although she is only an acquaintance of mine. We'd had them over for dinner last weekend and the evening had been fun and light-hearted.
Over dessert, the acquaintance had enquired about my line of work; I responded and gave a brief and, dare I say it, witty account of my chosen profession. This was greeted with, "Oh but Patrice wants to do that when she's older! What a coincedence!"
This is, on first glance, perhaps not completely unusual. However, Patrice is 2 years old. That's right - she goes to Day Care and is probably not in a position to discuss her career options with her mother. She is a bright child but not that bright. This apparent anomaly did not stop acquaintance from then talking solidly for 9 minutes (I discreetly timed this) about her daughter's "amazing" cooking ability. I think this was supposed to be a positive comment on the food we'd just eaten and which I had made. I was certainly glad that it was being considered in the same lofty culinary arena as that of a 2 year old master chef.
The second example was at a house auction being held in the head office of a very large Estate Agents in the city. There were approximately 80 people there. Or rather, 77 adults and 3 children. The owner of the children - a large, misshapen creature with tombstones for the few teeth she had left, and an unusual preference in perfume - chose, of course, to sit next to me. As the seats to her left (I was on her right) were all taken she asked if I could "hold this one for a moment" whilst she bid on the house she was interested in.
Apart from the fact that I did not want to touch the child, far less hold it, I had to explain to her that I was myself bidding for one of the properties. She asked which one and when I replied I was not terribly surprised to discover that we were bidding for the same house. Typical. "Now that we are friends, we can look after the children together," she said whilst I stared at her in utter incomprehension. I told her that I didn't want to look after her child and, by the way, shouldn't at least one of them not be in school ("no, I was told, we home school them" Oh God).
So she herded her flock around her as the auctions proceeded and they were noisy, boisterous and keen to empty themselves of both urine and, I think, a little poo as well. The stench was hideous.
Then came the time for my property to be auctioned. The children whimpered and nudged each other the entire time that myself, the witless woman next to me, and 3 other bidders attempted to win the auction. I did eventually win it (the only good thing to come from the whole experience) and the woman next to me was distraught. "I never thought a friend would do that to me!" she wailed before adding, "And I'm never letting you look after my children again, you ... you ... you THIEF!" She then stormed off, her offspring following in her wake.
I still don't really know what happened that day.