Charlie and the 12 year olds

July 16, 2005
By C.Whyte

The other night I went to see the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with my beautiful girlfriend Tasha. The evening was going great. We had gone to dinner before and both really enjoyed the film. Walking out of the movie at about 12:30AM we noticed a long line of people waiting to get their copies of the new Harry Potter book. The line was crazy, and quite a few people had dressed up for the occasion. One guy in line looked like a huge version of Harry Potter himself, so I had no choice but to point him out to Tasha. She saw him and chuckled a little and we continued walking. Little did we know we were overheard. *suspense builds*.

Don’t worry, the die-hard H.P. fans were not the ones who heard our comments and laughter, but rather a group of 3 little kids. They were all male and roughly 12 years old. Why they were out at 12:30AM I have no idea, but they were. I’m pretty sure they were out there to make fun of the people waiting in line for the book. At any rate, one of the kids turns to me as we walk by. He says:

“Do you like Harry Potter?” in an disgruntled / angry voice

Having read all previous books and watched all previous movies and not wanting to lie, I responded:

“Umm, yeah.”

Needless to say the child was baffled; he turned to his friends who didn’t know what to do either and said something to them. We kept walking. The kid then asks another question, which I cannot recall. Something along the lines of:

“Why do you like that stupid book?”

My response was more like me telling the kid to get lost:

“Yeah, I’m actually not going to talk to you right now” –cw

Tasha and I kept walking for about 3 more steps before I hear the kid yell out:

“Shut up!” –kid

For some reason I decided that I needed to say something back to this kid. So without missing a beat, I half turn around and in my most Italian voice respond with a commanding:

“Hey, why don’t you shuuuuut uuuuppp?” –cw in a mafia voice.

The children were stunned, and Tasha got scared. She squeezed my arm tighter and with a worried look on her face told me not to do that anymore and that we had to walk away faster. She later on told me that she was scared that the kid might be dangerous and that he reminded her of one of those crazy kids from the Butterfly Effect or one of those psycho movies. I, on the other hand, could not stop laughing at what I had just done. It was perhaps the greatest thing I have ever done in my life. I talked back to a 12 year old and WON the argument. “I guess you had to be there” –DY.

Trust me, it was great. My advice to anyone who gets lip from some kid is to throw on an Italian voice and show them who is boss. It works great.