The Screech Boy's Endless Bummer

We can now confirm reports that Braydon Hayden Holt, a young boy shopping with his parents in a Redding, CA retail store, has begun screeching for no discernible reason. We have dispatched reporters to the scene to gauge the severity of the situation.

It’s a sound like you’d hear from a large parrot or certain species of monkey, definitely some kind of tropical, tree-dwelling creature. But no, we’re not in the jungle, we’re at Walmart and this one kid is screeching his tiny lungs out.

Our analysis of the situation shows that Braydon Hayden is not hungry, sleepy, or being harassed, nor does he want a juice box, a toy his parents refused to buy, or uppies. It appears the boy is screeching just because.

“Yeah, I don’t know, he just does that,” says Braydon Hayden’s father Geoffry Holt. “There’s nothing wrong with him, he’s a normal kid, he just likes to screech.”

It is worth noting that neither Geoffry nor his wife Terri have done anything to curb the obnoxiously loud screeching.

“People tend not to realize they’re not the only people in this store,” says Sallie Lynn, an employee working close by, over the noise. “Not to mention those of us who AREN’T EVEN ALLOWED TO LEAVE!”

Jackson Groth, a sales associate also in the area, has put in his noise-canceling earbuds and has asked us not to “narc on” him, stating “I’m at the very edge of losing all of my shit right now and I just can’t deal with this kid screaming like he’s running a power drill directly in my ear canal”.

Some others describe the noise issuing from Braydon Hayden as “extremely grating” and “like you stuck the spout of a tea kettle up a squirrel’s ass and it’s time to get the teabags out.”

We asked Braydon Hayden why he feels the need to screech for literally every second he’s in this store (like when is he even breathing?) and in answer he screeched, somehow, even louder.

“Seriously,” says the boy's father, “he’ll stop the second we leave the store and then sleep the whole ride home.”

Again, neither parent has seemed to have even spoken one word to their child since entering the store, let alone asked him to be quiet for everyone else's sake.

“You need to keep an eye on kids when they scream like that,” says customer David Mitchell. “They’re usually just acting up for attention, but then there’s that one time out of ten where the kid is being snatched up by traffickers. You see Sound of Freedom? Well this is how that happens. It pays to stay vigilant, just in case that’s what’s happening, you know? It’s a sick, fucked up world we live in, I’ll tell you that much.”

Okay, so wait. Does this probably-armed man really think that 10% of kids screaming in retail stores are being kidnapped? Maybe security should be following that guy around at a safe distance.

With no relief in site from the high-pitched caterwauling, customers and staff alike are more than likely just going to have to deal with it for the time being.

“What can you do?” says sales associate Jackson Groth. “I can’t just hit a customer’s kid if that’s what you’re asking.”

Um, it’s not and we never suggested such.

“This is just life in retail, it’s what we chose,” says employee Sallie Lynn, as her eyes glaze over and she seems to be deep in introspection. “Yeah, we chose this alright. Didn’t we…?”

For now, everyone at the Redding Walmart can just wait for the Holts to finish their shopping and take their screeching, vexatious little miracle out of the store, leaving it in peace.

That is, until the next one shows up….