Entitled Mother demands her son plays around on my $1,000 electric drum set
People seem to love hearing stories about Entitled Parents so here’s something that happened to me around 8 years ago, I don’t remember the exact words that were exchanged but here’s the story:
I was setting up my electric drum set for a small gig myself and a few others had at a local bar, I walked away to help my friends bring across some band equipment because we were on a pretty tight schedule, the Entitled Mother (which I’ll call EM for the sake of the story) is pointing at my drum set and directing her Son to go and play the drums, the visibly uncomfortable Son (which I’ll call S) doesn’t want to go play my drums, so the EM grabs S’s arm and walks him over to my drum set and picks up my drum sticks and hands them to him, I go over and confront the EM.
Me: “Umm, excuse me ma’am, what are you doing with my drumsticks?”
EM: “Oh don’t worry, S was just gonna play on your drums while you set up the rest of your equipment.”
The EM pushes S up to the stool and I put my hand out to stop him, the EM looks me dead in the eyes
EM: “EXCUSE me, you don’t have the right to put your hands on my child.”
Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but this drum set cost $1,000, it’s really expensive and really fragile and I can’t have a child play around on it like it’s a toy.”
EM: “I doubt that this drum set isn’t THAT expensive, it isn’t even a real drum set, S is a very nice boy and just wants to play on your drums before you start the show.”
Me: “Sorry, but as I said this is very expensive equipment and I can’t have a child play on it like it’s some toy. The drum set hasn’t even been fully set up yet and will take time to set up, if you want, you can wait until after the show and I can show your son how the drums work.”
EM: “Don’t worry, S can wait for you to set it up, there will be plenty of time before the show for him to play so that won’t be an issue if you would hurry up.”
Me: “I’m sorry but I have TOLD YOU, I can’t let S play on my drums, I’m very busy and need to set up my equipment as well as set up my friends’ equipment so we can start the show.”
The band members are trying to work around this EM to set up equipment, and at this point a bit of attention has been drawn towards myself and the EM, a Worker (which I’ll call W) at the bar comes over to us.
W: “I’m sorry to interrupt, but is there an issue here?”
EM: “YES, there IS and issue, this rude boy isn’t letting S play around on his drums, he’s being very rude to me as well as physically pushing S, I demand that you allow him to play on the drums before the show.”
W: “We’re sorry, but we cannot allow patrons of this bar to play with music equipment without the owners permission, and we have not seen Me push S at any point.”
EM: “He DID push S, and if you don’t allow S to play on the drum set, I will press charges against Me and you, as well as this pub!”
W: “We have cameras that can prove us otherwise, if you don’t leave, we will contact the manager and have the police involved.”
EM: “I don’t care, what harm can a child do, just let S play on the fxxking drums, let him have some fxxking fun!”
At this point, S is visibly afraid and very uncomfortable, EM picks up S and puts him on the stool behind the drum set
W: “Ma’am, if you don’t get S off the drums and leave right now, we will call the police”
EM: “Fine, you have it your way.”
The EM grabs the drumsticks from S and throws them on the drums and storms out clutching S’s arm
EM: “You won’t be expecting to see US again!”
Luckily, we didn’t see them again and everyone could enjoy the show.
Confession:
I have to admit that I am not the person in the story, I’m Son (S) in the story, and I’m truely ashamed of my mother’s exchange between the drum guy.
Electric drum guy, if you ever read this, I’m really sorry about my mother’s exchange with you. This was very strange behaviour from my mother, and a promise she isn’t normally like this. I didn’t want to be a part of the whole situation and I truely apologise for what happened.