I was sitting at the Belconnon interchange, reading a book by Kevin Mitnick, and I saw this drunk guy staggering down the path between the different platforms. He looked at me and asked the time, slurring badly, and I gave it to him. Then he walked on, but just as I was going back to my book, I looked about and saw that there was a threesome of very young kids standing around him. One of the kids handed him something, and then I just kinda got bored, thought about sandwiches and the way gravity worked, and went back to my book. But then the kids walked along the platforms, in the opposite way to the guy, and I heard them singing various segments of Eminem's various songs. So I looked around: they were walking up to people, shoving and flicking cigarettes at them, and generally making a nusiance of themselves.
Then they walked over to me. Now, they had my attention. I looked one of them in the eye, and he flicked a cigarette at me and demanded: "What do YOU want?" Immediately, the trio fanned out around me, and made a sort of circle around where I was sitting. Now, when I say 'kids', they honestly looked about eight, but to be consevative, not one of them could possibly be over ten. My brother is twelve, and they were certainly way younger then that. Now, if it was anyone else, this would be considered quite intimidating behaviour; but I literally laughed, then stood up.
Anyone who knows me IRL knows that I am NOT a very physically intimidating person; I am very short and only weigh in at about 50kg. Yet, these kids came up to my stomache, that's how young they were, yet they were all smoking and all wearing 'homie clothes'. Then one of them spat at me, and I got a little angry. I pointed my arm with a finger extended to the exit, and told them firmly to "Go home. And get that shit out of your mouths." One of the kids's voices cracked as he flicked another cigarette at me, replying with an extremely witty "Fuck yEw!".
There's only two habbits I REALLY hate above all else. One's spitting, and the other's smoking. I get physically sick at cigarette smoke, so by now I was actually angry. One of the other kids flicked out a cigarette lighter, lit it, and tilted it so that the fire was heating the semicircle of metal around the edge. "Lets give him a smiley," the kid said, and they all laughed. I laughed too. They were all ten years old, acting like twenty year old thugs, and they seemed to think they were serious.
I sat down then, put my hands on my knees, lent forwards a little to make a slightly agressive posture, and firmly told them to go home again. I kept looking at the 'leader' in the eye, keeping a stern face and barely blinking. He was quickly upset; "Stop looking at me," he said, and flicked another cigarette at me (he was the last to have one of the filthy things in his mouth). But I kept looking at him, and after a few seconds he said, "C'mon lets go." And they all left, just like that. I talked with a few people that hopped onto my bus about it; one of them was an Indian guy doing his Master's degree in Computational Science. He was a Muslim, and since it was about sundown he was praying. The little twerps had bothered him by flicking ash at him from their cigarettes and trying to steal his beads while he had his head down. We had a really long discussion about kids like this, and it was great listening to what he had to say. He'd come from Bangladesh only recently, to study at University of Canberra, and he said that he found Australia to be an extremely wonderful country apart from a few scattered incidents, including this one. I said that that was to be expected, but that in general the vast majority of Aussies are good people.
But seriously. The kids were about TEN, and smoking and hanging out at the bus depot. Although they had left by the time it was dark, ten bucks says they wern't going home. But seriously. Where are these kids parents? Do they even care?