Why is it that parents think they need to bring their toddlers in strollers to crowded public events?
And it's not just those one child models but many are pushing the SUV models for two or three.
Case in point, the Kitsilano Farmers Market, which opened for the season today.
I arrived just after it opened but already, a sea of strollers blocking access to the vendors and being aggressively pushed through the crowds.
What do the toddlers get out of this?
Another group thought it was ok to stand in the middle of the main aisle and have a yak-fest.
It simply pisses off the people who come to patronize the farmers trying to sell their products.
The market does have a free bike parking area so at least you don't have to contend with morons trying to push their bikes through the crowds.
The same thing is true at the Market on Granville Island.
The aisles are not particularly wide there but again, strollers everywhere being rammed through groups of people who actually are trying to buy things.
Add to that the tourists who simply come to gawk and take pictures and the vendors wonder why the buyers don't come anymore.
I hit GIM as soon as it opens as it's only a ten minute walk from where I live along with the local chefs who buy there and am long gone by the time the tourist army and stroller mafia arrive.
Which reminds me of my best ever stroller story.
In the last century, I was at the Harbourfront Antique Market in Toronto where merchants contents spill out into the aisles.
One had a large display of antique vases, some priced in the thousands of dollars.
Most had signs saying "If you break it, you've bought it."
One couple pushing a stroller with a particularly rambunctious brat ventured too near a shelf full of pots.
One was knocked to the floor by the child's flailing arms, smashing into a dozen pieces.
The vendor made the parents pay the $750 dollar price.