Insecure
He dropped her name into conversation a little too casually and made my ears prick up. He told me about how beautiful she was, how sound, sitting in his taxi surrounded by shopping bags. I gave out to him for not finishing his sentences properly.
“She’s really funny though…”
“But not as funny as -” I prompted.
“But not as funny as you, of course. She has lovely hair, too.”
“FINISH THE DAMN SENTENCE!!!”
I got given out to for being touchy. Now on Sunday nights during ‘The All Ireland Talent Show’, TAT locks himself into the bedroom with the television wearing only a dressing-gown, and won’t let me in. I hover with my swollen body trying to think of a good looking Irish male television presenter I can glean revenge with. I fail miserably.
I don’t know whether I’m insecure because of Miss Perfection, or because The Accidental Terrorist’s viewing standards have slipped so low.
Soul stealers
You know the way ‘they’ say that some African tribes intensely dislike having their photographs taken for fear a bit of their souls are taken with them? I know exactly how they feel.
It’s a clever ploy that’s happened several times since Puppychild started school… professional photographers sneak into the building in the dead of lunchtime and snap a few quickies without warning, then they send a blackmail letter home with the kid later that day.
You have one week to pay the sum of €17.50 for a print of our photograph. If you want to see it alive, please view the school’s notice board.
I got a letter like this last week, and took the bait. Sure enough, there was a group photograph of Puppychild and her classmates, sitting angelically in a row outside the main door of the building.
It got to me that nobody had asked my permission to take that picture, or at least warned me about it so that I could have given her hair a pre-emptive brush. It suddenly struck me that if I didn’t pay for this photograph, somebody else would get at it and could potentially do strange and unimaginable things with it. I felt compelled to give these bastards my coal money, just to save my daughter’s soul.
It also occurs to me that there is now a negative somewhere in someone’s studio with my kid on it, and no amount of cash can get it back. I’m highly bloody un-nerved by this.
I will be giving these people an envelope containing €17.50 in exchange for my daughter’s soul. If they had asked for €190 for a print-off the size of a postage-stamp, I’d probably still consider paying for that, too. I feel invaded.
Clever soul stealers.
Valentine musings from the overworked and underpaid
Valentine’s day has always annoyed me a bit. As a late-blooming teenager I had always hoped that an anonymous card would find its way through my letterbox intented for my spotty four-eyed face, but it never did. One year an anonymous card did appear, but it was addressed to Billy Burn who lived at the other end of my road. A set up most likely… possibly by Billy himself, more likely by somebody else who wanted a cheap laugh. I can’t remember whether I delivered it or not, I hope in hindsight that I stuffed it into the exhaust-pipe of his dad’s car, but that’s unlikely.
Since starting on the sordid path of dating, it’s just gone from one extreme to the other… lavender-filled balloons and cheesy teddybears with crappy slogans like ‘You to me are like a spanner; every time I see you, my nuts tighten‘ were given to my by fellas who wanted to know what colour my knickers were, and when I finally hooked up with TAT, I got little or nothing. I prefer little or nothing by far.
This year, Laughingboy showed his love for me by producing a hefty dump in his nappy in the small hours of the morning. When I checked his schoolbag for baby-wipes, I found a sweet glitterish heart-shaped card with painty fingerprints all over it, and a wee bag of homemade chocolates. I let Puppychild show her love for her daddy by jumping on him violently at 5pm to wake him up for his night-time shift. TAT showed his love for me by reading me excerpts from Bill Bryson’s ‘The Lost Continent’ while I scraped eggy gunge from lunchtime kitchen saucepans, and I showed him my love for him by buying him an extremely violent Xbox game – ‘Army of Two, the 40th day’ – a shoot-em-up game that can only be played by in co-op with another. (What could be more romantic than annihalating things together over a glass of wine?)
I will be celebrating my love for myself tonight by lying on the wooden floor and listening to John Coltrane surrounded by candles for an hour or two before digging into a can of Guinness and a game of Assassin’s Creed.
Hallmark didn’t get a brass cent. Ha.
Snail Trail
As I bent over the bathroom sink scraping snot off Puppychild’s school jumper’s sleeve with a toothbrush (her own toothbrush – heh heh), it struck me that I was in a timeless club of parents who, since the birth of school uniforms, are cursed with the plight of snail-trail sleeves.
It also struck me that there is a sad lack of evolution in the school jumper trade. A row of buttons has foiled the snot wiping technique in blazers and shirts since what… the 20’s? Surely it snot too hard to find some sort of equivalent for jumpers and tracksuit tops?
And while they’re at it, what’s wrong with stitching a thumb-hole into school jumpers to save the wearer hours of labour trying to gouge one out with an overbitten thumb-nail? TAT bought a jumper recently from TK Maxx with such a thumb hole already stitched in… that impressed me no end, but then again I’m fierce easy to amuse these days…
El Duderino
The naming of the foetus is an epic task, especially when you haven’t met it yet. Of course there’s always the option of naming it after its zone of conception, but who wants to live their life with ‘Ballybunion’ for a moniker?
Baby name books are pointless, especially Irish baby name books. From Morrigan to Aoife to Siobhán, everyone has something mean to say about a name, (Siobhán your knickers, yer da’s on his way…) or somebody already knows a person by that name and doesn’t like them, or it rhymes with something rude… or maybe it’s just plain naff. Nah, if you ask me, the only way to choose a name is to scan the credits at the end of a film – this method always spews forth interesting possibilities.
Take my friend for instance… she’s due her babby in three weeks time, and she loves the name Charlie. She cannot name her kid Charlie, however, because her surname is Brown. Hell, Snoopy hasn’t been aired for years, if you ask me she’s on to a winner, but her family won’t let up nagging her into changing her mind.
Then there’s my other friend, who gave birth last month and named her baby girl ‘Kitty’. It’s not short for anything, Kitty is her name and Kitty is what she shall be called. I love it, but it’s undoubtedly quite an eccentric name, which beautifully mirrors a very eccentric family. My family is not eccentric, at least TAT’s side isn’t… I can imagine the multitudes of rolled eyeballs, the quick snide remarks directed towards the stoner family at the Christmas table. It’s just not worth it.
No, The Accidental Terrorist and I came up with an idea long ago, we had a flippant moment during a private viewing of The Big Lebowski:
Dude.
Why can’t I call my child Dude? “The Dude. His Dudeness… Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing” to quote The Dude himself.
Yeah, yeah, I know why I can’t call the child ‘Dude’, because someday he’ll grow up and will most likely want a job that doesn’t involve canvas or scripts, or burger flipping. Such is life. Or is it?!?! Such is the beauty of the Irish language perhaps… like the phrase ‘Mahogany Gaspipes’, the word ‘Dude’ could be Irish – all you have to do is add a fada and an ‘i’ somewhere, and the problem is solved, as follows:
-Duaid; short for Duaided, means ‘Evil Death’… who picks on a kid named Evil Death?!?
-Dúid; short for Dúidín, meaning ‘Pipe’. Grandad would be so proud.
-Dóid; meaning ‘Fist’… again, schoolyard politics are in favour of this one.
-Díud; short for Díthugad, meaning ‘Extermination’… a future in pest control perhaps?
-Diúd; short for Diúdán, meaning ‘Giddiness’, which is fitting.
-Duíd; a version of ‘David’, which my mother called me during the first three weeks of my confusing life.
But maybe the most fitting yet:
-Dúd… meaning ‘Mouth‘, because his would be one more to feed.
I do so hope it’s a boy!
Back of the hand
“Fuck off, you stupid fat bitch!”
I love watching Supernanny. Okay, so she’s a tad twee and parents cry way too bloody often for their own good, but it’s wonderful to watch other parents fail. It reminds me that even if I’m failing in some ways too, that nobody’s perfect. Is there any such thing as a non-dysfunctional family? Would The Simpsons be such a success if there were?
The above quote comes from a five-year old boy, spoken to his mother. You can tell he’s potentially a good kid, his diction and pronounciation regarding curse-words are second to none, even with missing teeth interrupting his fricatives. An intelligent kid, whose problem is that he’s just simply loved too much. His mother takes it, every soiled little last word of it, and dies a little bit inside.
Isn’t that madness? The running theme throughout most families of tearaway kids on the show, is that the parents can’t stand to chastise their children because they love them so much, they don’t want to hurt them. That is a seriously cruel thing about nature, the necessity for tough love. I don’t know how many times I’ve retreated to the bathroom in distress after I’ve had to dent Puppychild’s wee fairylike spirit with a firmly spoken NO. Watching her features drop into a look of pure hurt like that – having her tell me that she hates me- she always forgets later about the extremes of her revolt, but I never do. They should just extract the sympathy nerve from a mother during the birth of her first kid… that would soften the world’s problems entirely.
I don’t know why they don’t send Jo Frost to prisons, it’s never too late for tough love. Anyone who looks at her sideways would have to sit on the bold-chair for as many minutes as years they’re alive… listening to Celine Dion, maybe. That would set anyone on the right path.
Frowningboy
Plunged into the sudden creepy hush of a power-cut last night, my Mario Kart game crudely interrupted. Everything died, leaving me wondering for an instant if I’d suddenly turned deaf and blind… a cry from the kid’s bedroom shattered the silence… I wandered in with candles and put little minds to rest.
I rooted out the guitar and began to mess around, but a weird harmonic began to ooze into the chords. I put the guitar down, and listened. A strange noise sounded intermittantly, possibly the axe murderer who had just cut my power was trying to break the lock?? No such luck… I followed the sound into Laughingboy’s bedroom and winced as the tooth-grinding got louder and louder. It’s a totally different sound now, more like a rusty wood planer trying to smooth the underbelly of a hedgehog than the chaffinch sound I was used to.
I brought a candle close to his bed and prized his tensed jaws open for a look-see. The entire row of upper and lower teeth on the left hand side of his mouth are now ground to their bare minimum, his lower insisor grinding raw flesh causing pools of blood to appear on his over-effaced gum, yet he keeps grinding anyway. Presumably pain is relative to the poor kid.
I’m working up a steady input of Magnesium into Laughingboy’s diet as suggested by Jo, but not wanting to bombard him suddenly with too much, the dose is too small yet to make a difference. Maybe the next few weeks will show a change, I hope so.
In the meantime, necessity got me inventing… I cut a section of gum-sheild to the size of his two front teeth, then tied a cotton-covered hairband around it in the style of a friendship bracelet, stretched nice and tight so that the wee bit of plastic stays in place. Once strapped around his head, the shield refuses to budge – it takes a bit of watching for salivary purposes but otherwise it’s perfect!
It took me a while to figure out who he looks like with the gizmo stuck to his teeth, then it hit me;
He looks exactly like Shelley from South Park:
Poor Frowningboy.
How to deal with tattoo dislikers
Freezing Brass Monkeys. What do you do when your kid’s stranded four towns away and you want him home safe, but can’t drive to him? You drive anyway.
Eddie Blizzard had visited the night before… snow lay everywhere as though an over-zealous cake-maker had decided frosting was going out of fashion. A cupful of salt and a lot of revving finally got me there and back just about, even if I did knacker the car’s clutch on the climb back home. My boy was safe. I had food and fuel, and nowhere else to be. What more could a body ask for?
I very quietly patted the dashboard as I got out of the car, and thanked Betsy for being so reliable and promised to make a better effort to keep her serviced this year… I said it quietly because The Accidental Terrorist and his mates were hanging around and I’d like to keep my talking to inanimate objects just between you and me, to be honest.
A snowball pelted me in the ear. A small pride of kids were hiding behind a snowy knoll and were ambushing the men who stood in the doorway to my house smoking fags and belting the odd half-assed chunk of ice back in the direction from which they came. Puppychild stood in safety in the sidelines and giggled at the hilarity of it all.
I suddenly felt a snowman coming on…
Made to order. Can ship to Australia.
A half-hour later found me thawing the kids in front of a roaring fire and mopping misfired snowballs off the hall floor. I heard a muffled thud and boyish laughter. I peeked outside.
Our snowman decapitated, the gratuitous death of childhood innocence, it was pure carnage that lay before me. The kid swung his stick back over his shoulder, and took aim for the midsection of my poor snow-dude.
“Oi!!!” I sauntered outside in my teeshirt and wellies. The kid froze, so to speak. “What’s the story, bud – what did that snowman ever do to you?” He dropped the stick and took a step backward. He stood right into a pile of Wouldye’s crap, but you couldn’t tell because it was all covered in pretty whiteness.
I told him off for a few seconds, but it fell on deaf ears.
“Wat’s that on yer arm?” he asked, and pointed at my tattoo.
“It’s a tattoo.” I said.
“It’s weird.”
“So’s your face.” I said.
“D’you have other tattoos?” he asked.
“Yes, a few, but we’re getting off the point!”
“Why d’you do that? Put tattoos on you?” he wiped snot from his glowing nose… it froze instantly on his sleeve.
“Because if I get kidnapped and murdered and the murderer tried to cover up his crime, he’d want to chop me up, wouldn’t he? He’d knock out all my teeth first, then he’d pry all my fingernails off with a monkey-wrench, then he’d further try to hide my identity by cutting my limbs off to dispose of separately. By my tattooing as many limbs as possible, the murderer knows that disposing of my corpse would be a pain in the ass, see? So… he’d come looking for somebody else, wouldn’t he? Furthermore, if he’s watching me right now like all experienced murderers are (especially around here), he’s bound to choose you, isn’t he?”
The kid’s chin began to tremble. He mumbled something about my being crazy.
“MOMMY?!!” he shouted towards a group of women in a faraway cul-de-sac.
“Your mommy can’t help you now, kid.”
He legged it, as fast as his Ben 10 booties could carry him. I am heavily protective of my snowman.
To be sure to be sure, I found the patch of dogshit and began to roll it around. I made a head out of it. Then I replaced his smile and his cap and gave him a wink and blessed all who smashed his face in.
Gardening made easy
Our kitchen doors look out on to what would be a lovely garden. I’ve visions of all sorts of lovely herbs and climbing azaleas and nice-smelling foliage crawling all over the place, but the summer sort of… got away from me. I have a half-finished swing intended for Laughingboy and a pile of paving stones and several bags of cement that are too wet to be of any use anymore, I have a dead couch and a wheelbarrow full of rocks that Wouldye dug up and placed lovingly on the doorstep to make them more convenient to throw. I have broken flower pots and a bird cage and a rake of broken rusty tools and lots and lots of mushed dog turds.
On New Year’s Day a miracle happened… everything was covered in celestial whiteness, the snow so untouched, you could see a robin’s footprints on it. The junk never looked so beautiful. TAT gazed out of the window and suggested we find a wholesaler that would supply us with enough cotton-wool to cover the garden up all year round… it’s not the worst idea he’s ever had.
This is my offering of how the term ‘Slush Puppy’ was first coined:
Great expectations
“You all think Christmas just happens. You think all this goodwill just falls from the freakin sky. Well, it doesnt! It falls out of my holly jolly butt! So you can cook your own damn turkey. Wrap your own damn presents. And hey, while youre at it, you can all ride a one horse open sleigh to hell!”
Lois Griffin, ‘A Very Special Family Guy Freakin’ Christmas’
I went to a really lovely carol service last night, everything was frosty breath and little donkeys and talk of Bethlehem… but then I was discovered. Laughingboy drew attention with his chaffinch impressions… epic tooth grinding that even managed to drown out 250 voices all singing at once. In a bid for peace, at one stage I just stuffed his bib in his mouth to chew on. He looked like a kidnap victim, but hey.
Nice people started to talk to me and noticed that I was missing from their flock, but there are only a handful of ways that I can guild the fact that I’m just too damn lazy to go to Church with the kids on a Sunday. Sundays count for 50% of my weekly lie-in potential! Push it forward to lunchtime maybe and we’ll talk.
“Join us.”
“Yes, join us… you’re one of us now!”
“Join ussss!”
It’s difficult to do a legger when you’ve a wheelchair. They were all pregnant too… I touch my belly and wonder if this child will be born blue-eyed and blonde, despite the absence of genes to tell it to. If it is, I’m giving it to Brangelina.
-o-
Go and visit the Corner of Jocelyn Testes Harder. Hers is the kind of Christmas we should be having!
