humor

Queerer than we can suppose—Q&A with the kiddies

My Fellow Inebriates,

I fell asleep huddled among the empties last night, which meant I was in the kitchen for the following breakfast conversations.

V: Mummy, did the Easter Bunny write my name on this Kit Kat bunny?

Mum: Yup.

V: Oh. Because I thought you wrote it.

Mum: Nope. And it’s not for eating right now.

V: I know that. The puppy knows everything.

Even though V likes to refer to herself in the third person, her bullshit meter is sharp. My parents will get away with Easter Bunny activities for another year maybe, if that—and it won’t be their eldest who drops the bomb; it’ll be four-year-old Miss V.

▪ ▪ ▪

If you’ve ever tried to get a grade one and a preschooler off to school by 8:31 (yes, union regulations dictate that school starts not at 8:30 but 8:31), you know what a scramble it is. I’m not usually awake for it, but since I’d made my nest among the beer bottles, I had a listening post.

P: Mummy, do we believe in God?

Mum: Well, you can if you want, it’s up to you. What do you want, cereal or toast?

P: I mean, is God real?

Mum: Well, a lot of kids in your class probably go to church, right?

P: Uh huh. Do we go to church?

Mum: Nope. Cereal or toast?

P: Why not?

Mum: Because it’s totally boring. You have to sit still for, like, an hour and be really quiet.

P: I think I’ll believe whatever you believe.

Mum: That’s usually the way it works in families. But it’s up to you. Cereal?

This isn’t as negligent as it sounds. If P really wanted to go to church, my mum would find a churchgoing acquaintance to take her. And then she’d bore the shit out of the kid deconstructing the whole thing afterwards. My mum loves religion. She just doesn’t believe in it.

▪ ▪ ▪

P: Mummy, why do grown-ups smell?

Mum: Like, why do they have body odor and bad breath and stuff?

P: Yeah.

Mum: Well, it all comes down to hormones. Where are your shoes? Grab your shoes.

P: Hormones?

Mum: Yeah, body odor is all about territoriality and mating. Got the black shoes?

P: Mating?

Mum: Yeah, you know, because humans are basically animals, and animals like each other’s smells; that’s why they mate. Three minutes, guys, we gotta go.

P: You mean, like get together?

[And P mimes a big hug. Three minutes is not enough to get into this.]

Mum: Kind of like getting married—animals getting married. They like each other’s smells so they get together and have babies. Just like Daddy and I have babies. Got your shoes? Okay, which jacket?

P: Oh, but Daddy has showers so he can smell good.

Mum: I know, isn’t it awesome?

▪ ▪ ▪

Whatever contradictions manage to coexist in our brains, the kids’ questions do not stop. Get this one.

P: Mummy, is LB real?

Mum: Of course he’s real. Look at him.

P: I mean, is he alive?

Mum: Yeah. Of course.

P: But he’s a stuffie!

Mum: A what?

P: He’s a stuffed animal.

Mum: Oh. Then how did he wink that day when we bought him?

P: But he doesn’t move.

Mum: Sure he moves.

P: No, you move him!

Mum: What are you talking about? That’s crazy.

P: Mummy!

Mum: He’s perfectly real. There’s a whole construct called “LB.” He’s as solid an idea as anything else. The notion of LB exists, and the people around him support it.

[At which point P is moved to hug yours truly. This either represents a point for a mother trying to score points off her child, or the indulgence of a child who knows her mother is batshit crazy.]

Mum: Stranger things are believed in by more people based on a lot less evidence. LB has a blog. Of course he exists.

[And then she makes it weirder.]

Mum: I even saw a bunch of little bears that look just like LB in Save-On Foods. Just like him, only really small, for $2.99. They’re probably his offspring.

OMG!

(While walking to school)
V: Mummy, I wish that person wouldn’t leave dog shit all over the ground.

Banana schnapps it ain’t—P’s amoxicillin tastes like ass

My Fellow Inebriates,

What would YOU do if you woke up and found this on the breakfast table?

Damn straight, I slammed that shooter back.

Only it wasn’t a shooter. It was Miss P’s amoxicillin.

While I was retching…

Mum: P, you took your medicine already! I didn’t even have to ask you. Good job!

Innocent smile from P.

LB: WTF was that? OMG, that was the worst shooter I ever had!

Mum: Amoxicillin. P, did you take this medicine?

V: Mummy, what’s LB doing? Silly LB! Is LB throwing up?

Mum: P, did you give your medicine to LB?

P: No.

This was true.

Mum: So you just shot this back, LB? Dude.

LB: What the hell was in that? OMG, seriously, you’re making P take this 21 times?

Mum: Well, 20 now, since you’ve taken one of them.

P: I don’t mind sharing.

LB: Holy shit, what flavor is that supposed to be? That wasn’t like any shooter at any bar that I’ve ever had ever! OMG!

V: It’s banana, yellow banana.

LB: OMFG! So will it at least give me a buzz?

Mum: No. All it will do is alert any bad microbes you have of amoxicillin’s antimicrobial properties, enabling them to develop resistance and evolve into a stronger strain. So thanks for nothing, buddy.

But P was clearly happy yours truly had taken the bullet. Even though she still had to take another dose, she was that much closer to the end of the bottle.

After a nasty experience like this morning’s, I need a proper banana shooter.

As Seen On TV! (Or how to earn more beer money)

Bum-crack sighting of the day: a woman bending over to bag her dog’s rectal offering (five blocks distant from Walmart).

This is an excusable sighting—even admirable in a community where many dog walkers deem dog-crap disposal optional. Take a walk anywhere blackberry bushes happen to grow and you’ll see the prickles festooned with sunken-looking plastic bags. It seems people take the trouble to bag the excrement but can’t stand the thought of holding the warm bags for one minute, and instead hurl them into the trees.

My mum uses poo-bag sightings to illustrate to the girls the responsibilities a pet entails. Both kids are desperate for a dog and swear they’ll assume full responsibility for anything it pushes out of its bowel, but…well. My mum wasn’t born yesterday.

My mum has owned and neglected enough plants and animals to know how good intentions work. Her childhood cat? Tolerated being carried around by the tail for only so long and then took off forever. Her gerbils? Bred rampantly until there were 27 of them inside one cage, at which point she sold some to a pet store, which promptly fed them to a snake. Her oxalis plant? Begging for water most days. My mother recognizes herself as a person who shouldn’t—really mustn’t—have a pet. She barely has the capacity to keep her own offspring fed and bathed, never mind an animal that squeezes steaming turds out onto the sidewalk and trots onward.

But for all those dog owners who have taken responsibility for their pets’ defecatory products: Must you launch the bags into the trees? Does it really come down to a choice between leaving dog feces on the ground and adorning the trees with them?

Maybe someone needs to invent a better dogshit-handling system. Seriously, the person who brings that item to market could get rich off Langley alone. I like to think the people who live here would rather not decorate the trees and bushes with caca, and that if a system were devised to minimize their squishy encounters with warm copros, they would pony up the $20 or whatever the price As Seen On TV is.

So come on, inventors. Let’s think of something to make our neighborhood less excrementitious.