The youngest is contemplating his plain cheese burger, the eldest his burrito. The youngest’s friend is contemplating his chicken nuggets and I’m contemplating him. He’s small with specs and ginger hair. Quite cute looking I suppose you could say. Which makes it all the more difficult, because I’m thinking about the most humane way of disposing of him.
To be clear, this isn’t the kind of thing I do on anything like a regular basis. In fact I can’t remember the last time I disposed of a child - let alone a small, relatively cute one with ginger hair and specs. But fate has dealt young Reginald a cruel hand, because he’s standing between me and £100,000.
There is an unspoken agreement between us parents. We pay for theirs when they’re with us, they pay for ours when they’re with them. The theory is it all balances out in the end. But what if one of theirs suddenly gets rich as a direct result of something you buy it? Then surely a new set of rules kicks in. Something darker, more primal. It’s no longer about trying to be nice to the little darling so he doesn’t tell mummy incriminating things about you. It’s about standing up like a man and claiming what is rightly yours. And if lives have to be lost, so be it…
"Jes, eat your burger!” my wife instructs from part way through a Spicy Vegetable Deluxe.
Imagine the next time I drop him home, trying not to notice the brand spanking new Range Rover parked on his driveway. And the new conservatory and outdoor Jacuzzi in which his parents now lounge almost continuously, and from which they beckon me to join them for a glass of something fizzy in recognition of the small part I played in securing them their new-found wealth. I of course would take them up on their kind offer, but ask if first we can play a little game, which involves them balancing said glasses on their heads while I take pot shots with the semi-automatic rifle I take from the back of my crummy old car.
Then it’s go to jail, move directly to jail, do not pass Go, and (most poignantly) do not collect £100,000.
"Jes, I think that’s empty…"
I'm sucking hard on an empty Fanta. The sound reverberates round the restaurant like a dentist’s suction tube just before a tooth is pulled.
Perhaps I should forcibly remove the winning sticker from the child on the basis that I’m bigger than him, and while he’s in my charge I decide what’s good for him and what isn’t. And £100,000 most certainly isn’t. It would after all be irresponsible not to take this opportunity to demonstrate to little Reggie how nothing in life is ever handed to you on a plate, and anything worth having is only gained through hard toil. I’m sure his parents would thank me for teaching him this important lesson.
But what if they don’t? And what if the child discovers a talent for public oratory, takes to the table and denounces me loudly as an evil and cowardly tyrant who takes food from the mouths of hungry children in his pursuit of wealth and material gain. And then Daddy pops round for a quiet chat, and before you know it it’s a bloody nose, protracted court case, and the lowest rating on the parental popularity chart since Myra Hindley.
But what if they don’t? And what if the child discovers a talent for public oratory, takes to the table and denounces me loudly as an evil and cowardly tyrant who takes food from the mouths of hungry children in his pursuit of wealth and material gain. And then Daddy pops round for a quiet chat, and before you know it it’s a bloody nose, protracted court case, and the lowest rating on the parental popularity chart since Myra Hindley.
“Jes, are you not eating that?”
My burger has spewed-forth its components into its box, leaving the disemboweled bun hanging limply in my hands.
"Uhh, probably not…"
"Come on then, let’s go."
Reggie begins reeling off a list of Xbox games he’s going to buy (my God - these kids really aim high!) and we pick our way out through the tables of face-stuffing, sticker-peeling diners searching for a free soft drink, a free portion of fries, a free small fortune or - best of all - a meal that actually makes them happy. Some kid in the corner kicks off because he didn’t get the right Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and we help ourselves to a free balloon.
So here’s your son back Mr and Mrs Reginald. Fed and happy. And today’s your lucky day. Because despite the fact you’re already far wealthier than us, and have probably had a far better day (on account of not going to Mcdonald's, and not missing out on life-changing amounts of free money), we’d also like to give you £100,000 in the hope that you'll let us take your small boy out again sometime and, hopefully, make him and you richer still...
I could only be one thing. A small transparent pouch glued to the windscreen. My respectable middle class stomach lurches as it always does when it finds itself on the wrong side of the law.
“I thought it was free,” I plead.
“It is, but you still have to buy a ticket.”
“Why?"
"I don’t know, you just do."
"Let me get this straight. I’m not being fined for parking without paying. Because it’s free. I’m being fined for not walking to the ticket machine, extracting a ticket, walking back to the car and positioning it visibly on the dash. In other words doing everything you would if it wasn't free. How can not doing that constitute a criminal activity?"
"What are you on about? The point is you’ve just cost us sixty quid."
So there you have it, proof if ever it were needed. There’s two kinds of things in life; things you have to pay for, and things that aren’t free but pretend to be...
“Jes, stop looking at Reggie like that, you're going to scare him. Turn round and drive the car.”
@jesoverthinksit
@jesoverthinksit
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