So I was on a bus with my two under 5's. Had to sit near the back as the front was full. A couple of rows behind I can hear the sound of pubescent testosterone fuelled effing and blinding, but do my best to ignore it, telling myself I did enough of that myself when I was horrible teenager, and that they're just letting off steam etc.
After a few minutes it becomes clear this is more than that; the conversation is now entirely about the rape and murder of small children. I shoot one of these heinous idiots a look which can only be interpreted as 'shut the fuck up', and am greeted by menacing grins.
Now they're making jokes about Madeleine McCann, Gary Glitter, you name it. They're talking about sick things their charming friends have emailed to them; one of them even postulates a situation where he becomes my kid's 'new daddy', the premise of which is thankfully lost under the amount of grunting and swearing the other one is doing.
At this point i turn around and demand to know why my children should have to sit there listening to them while they discuss one sick and twisted thing after another. They basically laugh and carry on. The next thing I hear is them discussing what they'll do to me when they get off the bus. All I can actually hear is '-when we get off the bus!' 'hehe, yeah, when we walk past her- fecking skank---'
So I turn round again 'Listen, I can hear what you're saying, you know...If you seriously think i'm going to be intimidated by you...' My judgement of them is that they're pasty little oiks, not the kind of teenager who'd actually do anything, this is a very quiet rural backwater and I probably know their mums. If we were in a big city (i'm from London originally) I probably would have either moved seats (if there had been any) or kept quiet for my kids sakes.
At this point they get aggressive 'what?what?' that kind of thing. They start denying everything and tell me to turn round in my seat. At this point the man sitting directly behind me who's been on a mobile phone cottons on to what's going on, and demands to know why they're starting on a woman with young kids. They protest and then shut up at long last. When they get off the bus, this bloke tells me that they probably go to the big sixth form college in the town we've just come from, and another man in front of me says that he works there and will look out for them.
i'm left feeling pretty appalled really.