Appealing Ideas #5: The Things We Tell Our Kids
My daughter Gareth (names have been changed to protect the innocent) is now five, and recently started "big school". Nursery wasn't so bad in the parental fib department, because most pre-schoolers tend to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, not to mention whatever Disney's latest film might be. Not believing in these ancient and hallowed traditions is considered odd, in fact, and such questions as "What does the Tooth Fairy do with them then?" are generally ruthlessly quashed. But now that she's older, some other accidental fibs which seemed like a good idea at the time are coming to light and making her regard me with a jaundiced eye. Here are some of them.
Radiator Trolls. For those of you without combination boilers and nice warm appartments (so that's 4/5 of the world, then), radiators often make strange and unexpected gurgling noises. Well, mine do, anyway. A long time ago, when my girl was all wide-eyed and innocent, she asked me what made those noises and I invented the Radiator Trolls. These are (obviously) Trolls which live in Radiators. Please don't get confused, I don't mean cutesy Trollz which sit on office desks and have UberPunk hairstyles, I mean the hairy skinny shaggy bloodstained type who live under bridges and eat billygoats, gruff or not. Anyway, Radiator Trolls were all the rage for quite a while, a missing slipper or pencil or ironing board (I'm an untidy person) had been "taken by the Radiator Trolls, Mama!". Once my daughter arrived at school she discovered that the RT's were FIBS, and her opinion of me dropped accordingly. Interestingly, when I'm searching madly for my keys in the morning before leaving the house, she'll often say "Maybe the RT's have taken them, Mama!" in a voice positively dripping with irony.
England In The World Cup (Semi-Finals) Act, 1987, Section 2 Paragraph 9 I was mildly surprised that she went for this one, since the words "section 2 paragraph 9" are regulars in my conversation whenever I want to talk about some ditzy piece of beaurocracy, but there you go. She's only a bambina. According to the above-mentioned piece of fantasy legislation, then, if England reach the semi-finals of the World Cup (that's football, not soccer), one adult member of every household is obliged to sit in front of the telly with a beer in one hand swearing at the referee, whether they know anything about football or not. So I explained to her that, since my boyfriend (names have been changed to protect the embarrassed) Mitzy is at the moment working in Denmark, I have to do it for him. This is even better when it's conducted in a place of public entertainment, for instance my mum's pub, where fat wheezy smoky old blokes who would have a coronary just walking the length of the pitch shout at skilled, dedicated athletes playing their gnadgers off. If England are playing, I tell my daughter, then it's permissible to yell "Orright, go-orn'nen!!! My Grandmuvver could do be'er than that! In 'er coffin!", and that the less you actually know the better. My boyfriend Mitzy has taught her some useful phrases too; she's now inclined to pick up her lime-and-soda and stare thoughtfully at the icecubes whilst opining; "Beckham's free kick? It was unstoppable, mate, unstoppable!"
Ossils I'm particulary pleased with this one, because it was totally spur of the moment and justs get better and better. The root of all this is Mitzy, who's an engineer and thus owns things like oscilloscopes. An oscilloscope, at least, which he brought round to do obscure engineer-type things to my video (or DVD, or computer, or maybe hat), and which immediately fascinated Gareth. It (the oscilloscope) has a kind of probe attachement, and you can vary the frequencies (or whatever, I was reading a book during this bit) by twiddling knobs, and generally it's all very fascinating and scientific, which appears to be right up Gareth's street. Mitzy left it with us when he went away, and we've had endless fun since. The crack is, the existence of the Ossil. There are good and bad Ossils (or positive and negative, perchance) and an oscilloscope either rounds them all up (bad) and puts them in a bag or gives them a little extra electrical charge (good) and sends them on their way. Gareth trolled around the appartment for days testing different objects for Ossils. She tells me that there are loads in my computer, hardly any in cheese, and "funny Ossils" in magnets. Humans are also crawling with them, it transpires; I'm considering reporting it to the local Pest Control.
Radiator Trolls. For those of you without combination boilers and nice warm appartments (so that's 4/5 of the world, then), radiators often make strange and unexpected gurgling noises. Well, mine do, anyway. A long time ago, when my girl was all wide-eyed and innocent, she asked me what made those noises and I invented the Radiator Trolls. These are (obviously) Trolls which live in Radiators. Please don't get confused, I don't mean cutesy Trollz which sit on office desks and have UberPunk hairstyles, I mean the hairy skinny shaggy bloodstained type who live under bridges and eat billygoats, gruff or not. Anyway, Radiator Trolls were all the rage for quite a while, a missing slipper or pencil or ironing board (I'm an untidy person) had been "taken by the Radiator Trolls, Mama!". Once my daughter arrived at school she discovered that the RT's were FIBS, and her opinion of me dropped accordingly. Interestingly, when I'm searching madly for my keys in the morning before leaving the house, she'll often say "Maybe the RT's have taken them, Mama!" in a voice positively dripping with irony.
England In The World Cup (Semi-Finals) Act, 1987, Section 2 Paragraph 9 I was mildly surprised that she went for this one, since the words "section 2 paragraph 9" are regulars in my conversation whenever I want to talk about some ditzy piece of beaurocracy, but there you go. She's only a bambina. According to the above-mentioned piece of fantasy legislation, then, if England reach the semi-finals of the World Cup (that's football, not soccer), one adult member of every household is obliged to sit in front of the telly with a beer in one hand swearing at the referee, whether they know anything about football or not. So I explained to her that, since my boyfriend (names have been changed to protect the embarrassed) Mitzy is at the moment working in Denmark, I have to do it for him. This is even better when it's conducted in a place of public entertainment, for instance my mum's pub, where fat wheezy smoky old blokes who would have a coronary just walking the length of the pitch shout at skilled, dedicated athletes playing their gnadgers off. If England are playing, I tell my daughter, then it's permissible to yell "Orright, go-orn'nen!!! My Grandmuvver could do be'er than that! In 'er coffin!", and that the less you actually know the better. My boyfriend Mitzy has taught her some useful phrases too; she's now inclined to pick up her lime-and-soda and stare thoughtfully at the icecubes whilst opining; "Beckham's free kick? It was unstoppable, mate, unstoppable!"
Ossils I'm particulary pleased with this one, because it was totally spur of the moment and justs get better and better. The root of all this is Mitzy, who's an engineer and thus owns things like oscilloscopes. An oscilloscope, at least, which he brought round to do obscure engineer-type things to my video (or DVD, or computer, or maybe hat), and which immediately fascinated Gareth. It (the oscilloscope) has a kind of probe attachement, and you can vary the frequencies (or whatever, I was reading a book during this bit) by twiddling knobs, and generally it's all very fascinating and scientific, which appears to be right up Gareth's street. Mitzy left it with us when he went away, and we've had endless fun since. The crack is, the existence of the Ossil. There are good and bad Ossils (or positive and negative, perchance) and an oscilloscope either rounds them all up (bad) and puts them in a bag or gives them a little extra electrical charge (good) and sends them on their way. Gareth trolled around the appartment for days testing different objects for Ossils. She tells me that there are loads in my computer, hardly any in cheese, and "funny Ossils" in magnets. Humans are also crawling with them, it transpires; I'm considering reporting it to the local Pest Control.
posted by holojojo at 1:38 PM
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