Hidemi's Rambling No.364

One of what I hate most in this world is a kid. I rarely see a quiet child and most of them are ill-behaved, noise making, violently romping monsters. I can’t stand their high-pitched voice and way of laughing. All my life I’ve tried to avoid them, even when I myself was a child. Ironically, almost all my favorite places are also kids’ favorites. Kids encroach on theme parks, restaurants and stores that I happen to like and I eventually can’t go in. The mystery is, the same thing happens to an area where I decide to live. When I lived in downtown Tokyo, I had chosen an apartment in a quiet area, but families with kids had moved in the neighborhood constantly. Soon, I was besieged by kids and had to move out. After I moved in a suburb, the quiet neighborhood had rapidly gathered families with kids and I again had to escape. Now I’ve moved in a sparsely populated town surrounded by the mountains. I’d seen few people around me and been confident to have finally found a kids-free environment. Five months have passed since I moved in and I noticed an ominous change around me. There used to be only few elderly residents in my apartment building, but I’ve seen more and more kids lately. They are jumping into a Jacuzzi in the communal spa and running around the locker room. A baby is crawling the dirty floor there. Kids have been moving in since I did. Am I a magnet for kids or something? Do they inevitably gather around me? I’m afraid that the town also might have many kids soon…