The wife is out doing a voice-over gig, so the toddler and I are watching “Bananas in Pyjamas” and eating peanuts. It’s the episode where the Bananas make a movie to bail Rat out of trouble. I know you all know it. Right? Right?
A female friend said to me a couple of decades ago, “a man may be the head of a family, but a woman is the neck, and the neck will turn the head wherever it wants it to look”. That phrase came back to me with blaring trumpets tonight as I was left in charge of the toddler.
The evening started with me putting out the fire of her mum leaving. There was screaming and gnashing of teeth. I managed to settle the thing by putting on the telly. It was late enough so she (and I) could watch Octonauts. It’s actually a cool show and you learn about sea creatures so I’m cool with her watching it. Trouble is though, she is freaking obsessed with “The Farmees” on You Tube. The wife won’t let her watch it at all, but I’m a weak prick and will give her whatever she wants, as we’ve already established. The show creeps me out as I keep thinking of what Peter Jackson would have done to the lamb character if it appeared in “Meet The Feebles”. After five minutes of The Farmees, I want to do an Elvis on the telly.
Anyway, the toddler wanted me to cook it an egg so I made it one. It ate a little of it and decided it wasn’t up to scratch. This isn’t anything new as it is very fussy when it comes to eggs. So, it told dad to make another one. Which dad did. Mostly because he could escape the inane Farmee show for a few minutes and look at the gin he can’t drink — because you know, responsibilities.
Dad comes back with a freshly cooked egg-white and some other munchies, to find the toddler now perched on the arm of the couch. It was asked nicely to sit properly and of course it ignored me. So dad explains the danger of its current choice in seating position, hoping reason would win the day, as it did one time in the past.
“No.”
Shit, I thought.
Then I get the bright idea of turning off the television. Victory!!!!! No more Farmees and I’m teaching discipline and how the world actually works under an oppressive government. This act of course brings all the devils of hell crawling out of the shadows to lend power to the blond demon currently sitting on the arm of the couch staring at me.
I’m all cool with it. I’m discipline dad now.
“Hey. I asked you nicely to sit on the couch properly. Not sitting properly, means no television.”
Oh my God, the power I wield!
It thought about this.
It didn’t move an inch.
Now silence.
“So. No telly if you sit on the arm of the couch,“ says I smuggly.
It thought some more about this. Didn’t move an inch.
“So, if you want to watch the telly again, you’ll need to sit on the couch properly.”
It slips off the arm of the couch and sits properly. Of course I think I’ve won until it requests it’s dumb show is turned back on.
I could read it in its eyes, “check-mate, f****er.”
I had promised it the telly. I had no leg to stand on. If I didn’t do it, I could never be trusted.
If I could have stepped out of my own body, I would have publicly spanked myself. A trousers-down, bare-arsed spanking for my idiocy.
Yet, after what felt like an eternity of the same 3 daft songs on loop and my teeth grinding to nubs, it got bored.
“Do you want to watch the movie dad wants to watch?”
“No.”
“The Bananas?”
“Yes!”
So now we’re watching the Bananas and eating peanuts as we bond.
FUN FACT: Rammstein and Rob Zombie once calmed it down when it got upset. True story. I could rock it to sleep with Du Hast blaring.
Danny Matier 