Mr. Crankypants

It is a morning ritual that I go outside with Brian in the morning when he smokes. (I don't approve of his smoking FYI) I do, however, enjoy spending this couple of minutes with him in the morning. It is a wonderful way to get the day going if I may say so myself. This morning was quite different than the others. As we are outside talking about our days and about Brian's last poker adventure, this old man (who I am calling Mr Crankypants) walked up the sidewalk. When people walk by I usually say hello and they say it back and keep walking...but he stopped. Then he randomly started talking about some people that lived in an apartment by us and how they left the place a mess. He said there were always roaches and the place was trashed. Then he started talking about how the maintenance people at the apartments never fix anything. He was bragging about how he called the office to cuss them out. Then his conversation moved on to talking about kids. (I say HIS conversation because he didn't stop talking long enough for Brian and I to respond lol) His take on kids was quite shocking to me. He said that they are messy and demanding and destructive. (which I believe are all true for kids at some point) He talked about how there was a family who had 6 fat "rugrats" who lived near him who were terrible. Supposedly they were so fat that they climbed up a tree and broke the branches. Normally I am so annoyed by people like this. I am generally a positive person. I see the glass half full 99% of the time, and I enjoy life being like that. But I wasn't annoyed at Mr. Crankypants. I was laughing so hard. I guess it's just the way he was saying things. It was like he was that old cranky man in the movies who is sitting on his front lawn yelling at the "rugrats" to GET OFF MY LAWN! lol But the next thing he said really disturbed me. In his rant about hating kids, he said that he has 2 daughters that he hasn't seen or spoken to in 30 years. He said that he doesn't even care to see them and he wouldn't take them back even if they were homeless. He said he wouldn't even pay a dime for them. And it just broke my heart. I can't imagine ever thinking that about Ryot. I mean, I don't have a relationship with my dad, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't talk about me like that. I mean, golly Mr. Crankypants! I'm sure with feelings this strong you knew you didn't want to have kids, so why have 2?!?! It just doesn't make sense. He talked about how he loves his cats and almost teared up telling us about how he had to put 2 of them down because they had cancer. I just don't understand how anyone can love their cats more than their own kids? It just made me feel sorry for him. It made me wonder about his story. I believe that every person is born likeable and it is the growing up that does the tainting of that personality. People react differently to every curve that life throws at him. Every person has the choice to which path they take. Everyone has a story...even Mr. Crankypants.