My Mother has always claimed that I can be a little bit of a cynical and sarcastic bollox. Personally I’ve never found my own company to be anything other than delightful – I don’t see her problem at all!
You can imagine her delight then, when I had to ask her advice on how to handle my own smart-assed kid. She positively reveled (and still does) in the knowledge that I was getting my karmic comeuppance!
Bryan and Josh – Total Superheroes
There were many signs I was Father to my comedic and sarcastic nemesis, Josh. For example, the time we dressed as Batman and Robin for Halloween. I of course had to be a 6’5” sidekick Robin, to his 2’6” Batman. And as the ‘sidekick’, I was ordered about all night, because even though he was only 3 at that stage he KNEW that’s what sidekicks were supposed to do – what they’re told!!
(I must admit the trade-off for me, was the look on the faces of a group of slightly older kids who tried to take his sweets when his gigantic sidekick came around the corner!)
Then there was the moment back in May 2009 when sitting at home with Josh – 5 at the time – and enjoying our first Saturday together in a few years after my taking redundancy from Dell. An ad for Dell came on the TV; if you can remember, it was the one with the ‘magical Willy Wonka’ type-factory?
A laptop moved along the production line while all the happy workers were singing ”Lollipop, lollipop, oh lolli lollipop”….. Until the elephant at the end of the line blew a toot and stamped the Dell logo onto the lid… D’ye remember that one?
Josh and I were watching it together and afterwards, he goes quiet for a moment before turning to me and saying:
”Dad, I know why you got fired.”
”I didn’t get fired dude, I took redundancy!”
”Yeah Ok, I know why you’re redundant then…. You can’t sing!”
Like a supremely malevolent X-Factor judge who’s just told me I’m unemployed because I’m shite and always will be, he then convulsed with laughter at his proclamation! And really, how could I argue with that impeccable application of logic! :/
Still, it could be worse, I could’ve been the guy he went for at the O2. We went to see the Batman Live show back in 2011(Josh was 7), and as we were settling into our seats a group of five 30-something year old men came in and took their seats in the row behind us. The best way to describe these guys would be “Big Bang Theory”, which I don’t say as a bad thing; Josh and I are both self-confessed geeks too.
A conversation started up between us and this group, about our favourite comic book characters and Marvel vs DC in general. One of the guys was wearing a Superman T-shirt. So, of course, Josh asks him the obvious question:
”Why did you wear a Superman T-Shirt coming to a Batman show?”
T-Shirt Dude tried to apply logic and reason, hoping to outsmart Josh with his explanation, and says;
”Well they are both strong DC characters and I like DC in general.”
Josh had a think about this but clearly didn’t accept T-Shirt Dude’s answer.
”Ok….Wonderwomans a DC character too, isn’t she?”, he asked.
T-shirt Dude said something vague about how great it is to see strong female characters in comics etc… But Josh already had him.
”So do you wear Wonderwoman underwear too?”
The poor guy was slagged relentlessly all night by his friends and a few other people who’d heard the exchange! Part of me would like to think Josh asked the question innocently, thinking maybe along the lines of his own superhero jocks. But actually I know better; he knew he had a win in his hands.
When the time comes and he is writing his comedy routine (OR his list of his enemies prior to the revolution ;o) ), I know I’ll be hoping to be in the funny column and maybe he’ll need a manager willing to work for scale!