Thursday 2 October 2014

Good Kids and Bad People


My children are really good kids.  They are generally well behaved and usually do as they are told.  I am not prone to yelling or nagging them (except Miss Marvellous and her inability to keep her room tidy… a battle I’ve finally conceded I will NEVER win and the room will remain a bombsite until she leaves the nest).  They’ve always been pretty good.  They ask before venturing to the pantry to eat whatever they can lay their hands on, they come home when I ask them to and generally behave as you would expect well raised children to behave.
When they were little toddlers, I was insanely strict with language.  Believe it or not, there was a switch and I could just flick it when the kids were around.  Actually, we weren’t even allowed to say “shut up” in our house!  I remember them seeking my approval to sing the song “Shut Up” by the Black Eyed Peas.  Gestapo! 
Since they’ve become teenagers and Miss Marvellous is now a young adult, I am finding it increasingly hard to put my filter in and find myself saying not only swear words in their presence (much to the horror of The Captain), but saying inappropriate things that should not be funny at my age and display my underlying immaturity.  Miss Marvellous often barks “Oh My God!  You’re so immature” at me.  I even blurt weird shit out in front of her friends.  Unfortunately, my indiscretions seem to have become a green light for them to utter the odd profanity in my presence.  I have assured them that I know they swear at school but they need to be sure not to swear in front of their father, their Grandparents, me or any other grownups (especially teachers).  The week Boy Wonder started high school, he dropped the shit word.  I berated him for swearing.  He grinned at me and said “shit, bloody, bugger, arse, SHIT!”  I was shocked into silence and Miss Marvellous burst out laughing.  I yelled “Hey!’ but Miss Marvellous had already high-fived him.  Well done with the encouragement!  Next thing I know, this kid is teaching me new words.
Boy Wonder came home from school recently with a new descriptive word, which he proceeded to insult me with.  He said “you’re a choad”.  Right, well if you’re going to insult me son, at least use the English vocabulary.  He was incredulous that I didn’t know what a choad was.  He looked at me with a blank face and said “look it up”…so I did.  It turns out that a penis, which is wider than it is long, is a choad.  Humph, who knew?  Nice to be called a short fat dick.    Then just the other day I heard him upstairs yelling at his sister.   I stood at the bottom of the stairs, about to yell up to them to stop yelling at each other when I heard  him say to her “you’re a funt”.  Oh my Lord!  I yelled at him that he could NOT use that word.  I said it is abhorrent.  He was immediately defensive “why can’t I say it?  It’s not like I said the actual words”.  My response was that it’s still insanely obvious which words he had joined to make the horrendous insult.  Still defensive he uttered “how come we can say fugly then?”  Well he can’t say fugly either but he does use it and I don’t jump down his throat for it so that’s an ‘inconsistency’ red flag for me.  Bereft of a reasonable explanation, I retorted with “Just because”.  Mmmm, excellent grown up answer.
Miss Marvellous has become quite comfortable calling me a bitch or a stupid little shit whilst sporting a smile on her face.  I tell her to stop swearing and she says “No”, still smiling.  I can’t ground her because she hardly ever goes out!  That’s as bad as her expletives have become so I won’t complain too loudly given my filth.  She does, however, throw things a lot when frustrated (but she doesn’t swear…just throws stuff).  When I see that she’s worked up, I get the hell out of the way lest I have a piece of pizza crust bounce off my head.


Boy Wonder is getting quick and witty.  Recently, I was putting my bike shorts on under my skirt (because you know that shit happens to me) and he queried “Why do you two girls always wear bike shorts under skirts? If I wore mine they'd be so uncomfortable".  I said "That's because yours are padded; they have a fat arse in them”. A moment later I pulled mine up and over my backside when he grins and says "well so do yours, now"!  What a little shit.
There was a recent incident involving both of my kids which really got me riled.  On her way home from school, Miss Saint Marvellous came across a small Chihuahua dog wandering aimlessly about the streets.  It showed absolutely no road sense and as we live between two busy roads, she was concerned for its safety.  The stupid dog followed her home and unsure what to do with it, reluctant to leave it to its own stupid lack of sense, she brought the stupid thing home.  I’ve taken one look at this rat like dog in her arms and queried “What the hell am I going to do with a stray dog?”  She brow beat me into feeling like a shit before telling me she was going to door knock the neighbourhood to find its owner.  Silently cursing her kindheartedness, I sat in the house seething that I couldn’t go shopping until she found the owner of the mutt.  I am an arsehole.
This dog showed no sign of any restraint at all – going psycho when it spied the cat, which doubled in size with all its fur on end.  It sniffed, licked and pissed on anything it could see and had already outstayed its welcome.  Boy Wonder offered to go with her to knock on the doors and ring the bells. 
About fifteen minutes later, Boy Wonder comes in the door and he is in an obvious state of upset.  It turns out the old bag of shit at the end of the street screamed at my kids for trespassing and bringing a filthy animal to her house and then she chased them out the gate with a broom!  Miss Marvellous, not so easily rattled said “Okay, we’re leaving” but the old bitch continued to chase them out and completely frightened Boy Wonder out of his mind.  How DARE she treat my children that way!   They weren’t hurting anyone!
I felt so incensed that I marched down there to give the old fuck a piece of my mind.  I rang the doorbell repeatedly (I’m talking finger on the bell and ding, ding, ding, ding – putting all of my ire into each ding) but to no avail.  Not satisfied, I looked in the windows but saw no movement.   I smile at this old bitch as she sweeps the path outside her house in her dressing gown at four in the afternoon.  Not anymore, she has just earned herself a fucking SNEER and a GLARE from now on!
I looked directly into what I hoped was her hiding place and yelled loudly and concisely “Yeah, that's right, don't answer the door to an adult you gutless, spineless, bitter old bag of bones!  I had BETTER not hear you've yelled at my kids ever again or there will be HELL to pay!" and I stormed out.   As I walked out of her gate, her next door neighbour came out and told me that the stupid old bitch was completely nuts and doesn’t know what she’s saying.  Possibly explains the dressing gown in the afternoon.  Same old biddy complained about a bit of dirt on the path outside our house on a wet day once.  Get a real problem, old dragon.  The old bitch probably thinks the world owes her a fucking favour just because she’s still in it!  Why hasn't someone put old vinegar tits in home so the children don’t have to get terrorised?  During my tirade at her front door she was probably flying around the backyard on her broom stick thinking she was playing a Quiddich match at Hogwarts school for Witches and Wizards. Stupid old hag!  She hates children and glares at Boy Wonder when he walks past to go to school.  I remember Boy Wonder once saying to Captain Fantastic that when he was younger, he was talking on his new walkie talkie to a friend around the corner and she came out of her house and yelled “Why don’t you grow up!”  The captain said “Why didn’t you say to her “Why don’t you go and get dressed?””  A rare witty moment by The Captain.  I’m sick of seeing the old bitch in that blue dressing gown.

I ended up calling the Council regarding the dog and they sent one of their officers out.  The Officer scanned its neck and found that it was micro-chipped, which he traced to an address in WA... we are in Victoria. WTF??? Fido probably just finished the mother of all road trips, sniffed a million arses on the way and finally made it to Victoria only to be sent back home again!  The officer took the dog away and then it wasn't my problem anymore... but not before it scared the be-Jesus out of the cat and made her look like a furry inch-worm walking on all claws around the back deck!  Fuck off Fido the Fuckwit Dog!