Because of patrons like Roger Stephens up there, who take it upon themselves to slap other people’s crying children to “shut them up.”

Also, possibly this.

Is it wrong to admit I’ve never read any of the Twilight books?

But listen, even if I had, and even if I loved them to absolute bits and had dreams every night about Edward, I would NEVER put something like this in my room, much less that of my tween.

Oh yeah, some creepy lifesize cutout, complete with hair spikes no less, of a dude on my wall would in no way make me feel safe. Yikes, quite the opposite.

Perhaps at one point I would have put some life-sized cutouts of Duran Duran on my walls, but at least they weren’t vampires.

Wow, I never realized, but it’s true!

They missed Winnie the Pooh as having Anxiety, and maybe Foghorn Leghorn with his Speech Impediment.  It’s late and I can’t think of anyone else, but I’m sure there’s more where that came from.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to go into a Hollister store. I have teenaged cousins, so I have had to suffer through the poor lighting and horrifically loud music, not to mention the crappy, overpriced clothes. And I also realize after reading that sentence back to myself, I am officially old.

Whatever.

Being a California native, I have never cottoned to Hollister and its offerings, which are nondescript, cheap looking articles of clothing that somehow pass as surfer “chic.”  Just know that no real surfer would ever be caught dead in Hollister clothing.

So, establishing that I have a hard time giving them a fair shake, along come these gems, targeted toward teen girls:

Excuse me?  “The twins are quite a handful?”

“Save a wave, ride a surfer?”

Thanks Hollister! Now I have even more reason to hate you!

There is a T-shirt that is causing practically every parent in the United States to go into paroxysms of outrage.

I present the Twisted Twee Tassel Tee:

You would be correct if you thought those were the type of tassels that most commonly dangle from the chesticles of burlesque performers.

In an interview with ParentDish,  UK-based designer Suzi Warren defended her creation thusly:

“There is nothing very sexy about a baggy, lap neck, long sleeved t- shirt for a 6-month-old. So by embellishing this style of garment with printed nipple tassels, the result is not that the baby becomes sexualized by the tassels, but that the tassels are made benign and silly by the baby. In fact the more inert, innocent and unaware the infant is, the more ludicrous the contrast becomes.”

Call me uptight, but somehow, I’m failing to see the irony.

What I do see is someone who seems perfectly willing to part fools with their dollars.

This is formerly wholesome teen star Miley Cyrus on the “green” carpet before the Teen Choice Awards. Not exactly the outfit I would have hoped for.

This is an even less wholesome Miley Cyrus performing on the Teen Choice Awards. It has been claimed that it technically isn’t a stripper pole because it is on top of an ice cream cart, but since when did ice cream carts have poles on them? Semantics, says I.

Remember when everyone thought this was bad?

I’m sure by now you have all heard the story about a Burger King franchise in St. Louis that asked a mother who brought her shoeless infant into the restaurant to leave because she was violating what the workers believed was a health code violation regarding shoelessness.

This post is not about that.

Well, not really.

This post is really a rant about the state of education in our country as a whole, and how we as a society are failing to teach our children critical thinking skills.

So if you don’t feel like reading a semi-rant today, then I suggest you go elsewhere.  I’m sure we’ll be back to the fun and light by tonight.

What I really take issue with is the utter failure of the staff to interpret the rules in a way that involves actually using their brains.  And really, it wasn’t even a rule, they were totally mistaken about that.  But that is somewhat beside the point, because they acted as if it was.

But, they lacked the ability to reason and say to themselves, ok, if an employee or an adult were to walk into the store without shoes, that is one ball of wax.  But an infant who is incapable of walking?  That is an entirely different ball of wax, and perhaps in that instance, the rules could be bent.

They could not separate a “rule” from the gray area that exists in daily living.  The gray area we encounter constantly and must adapt to on an almost minute by minute basis.

And this is where I feel that with the importance the education system is placing on rote learning and memorization in order to do well in tests, instead of real world knowledge, is where we are failing our kids.  Because even if it is the education system that is placing the emphasis on tests, it is us parents who are also failing to stop them.