Scream

I'll be completely honest, I hate Hallowe'en.

Don't get me wrong, any excuse to dress like I used to in my gothic youth should be a good thing, and I love horror films. But let's be honest Hallowe'en is essentially a one night amnesty on doorstep robberies. It's as if just because it's All Hallows' Eve teenagers are allowed to demand money for menaces by virtue of standing on your doorstep wearing a sullen expression and a bin bag. The only time I've enjoyed Hallowe'en was the year I took to answering the front door with a baseball bat and; "TRICK, YOU BASTARDS!"

So when I got home and the Wife said;

"Get the Kids into their costumes. We're going trick or treating."

I was annoyed. We don't live in America, I'm not smuggling E.T. out of my bedroom, and jacking the Kids up on Haribo for the next week did not appeal at all. So I told the Wife who's boss by saying;

"Right-o, love."

Now it strikes me that if you're going to go trick or treating you should take things seriously and make an effort with your outfit. The Boy agreed with me and took careful stock of his dressing up outfits before choosing a skeleton (not skellington, I hasten to add) costume.

The Girl initially wanted to be a Pirate Cat. This, I explained to her, was not really what Hallowe'en was all about. in a breakthrough moment, for once she took some advice rather than simply yelling; "No."

Then she ignored my advice and dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. With fairy wings. And an axe.

Fortunately for me the Wife's idea of trick or treating was to drive over to friends and family's houses. A great idea because you avoid knocking on the door of the crazy cat lady up the road who hasn't got any sweets but has some "brown cat eggs" she insists you take. So we went over to see Grandma. Who wasn't in.

The four of us sat in the car, waiting for Grandma to turn up, in the pitch dark, listening to the wind. The Girl's wind. Bless her she'd been ill the night before and still wasn't herself. Eventually Grandma turned up from work, looking slightly flustered. Sportingly we let her go inside before we walked up to the front door and bellowed "Trick or treat!"

Sadly, the gusto with which the Girl yelled proved a bit much for her fragile digestive system, and there was a very suspect bubbling noise and a look of surprise that suggested something untoward had happened.

I'll admit, as a trick on Hallowe'en, shitting yourself it pretty radical. Meanwhile Grandma exercised her right to make a slightly weird situation very weird indeed.

"Trick"

She said, which made both Kids turn to look at the Wife and I with an anxious look that said; "We were promised sweets!"

"I haven't got any sweets. Why don't you take me to the local shop and I'll buy you some."

This was a rather strange thing to say since, as the Wife pointed out;

"You work in the local shop. And you've just finished work."

So, just another normal day with the Family...

*Sigh*

Death Again

"Dad?"

Said the Boy the other night as he was cleaning his teeth for bed.

"Yes?"
"What age are you when you die?"

Now that's not a question you want to have to answer when you've got to get the Kids into bed before you have a pizza. Still, I believe in answering most of the Boy's questions.

"Well, most people die in their seventies and eighties. Although some people die much younger, and some people live to be over a hundred. And then they get a telegram from the Queen."
"Which kills them off."
"Er. No."

The Boy hasn't asked many questions about this recently. The Girl however is still very much in the "Your Dads dead, isn't he dad?" phase. Which can be a bit brutal in it's matter-of-factness. So, to give the Girl some kind of background we took her and the Boy to my Father's grave this weekend. Not the whole weekend, mind. We did other things.

I hadn't been there for about four years, I'm not mad keen on revisiting my Father's grave site, but the Kids set about it like we were going to Centre Parcs for the day. This was fine save for the fact that they decided to pretend to be dogs for the first ten minutes kind of clashed with the atmosphere. A bit.

Still, my Ma and I introduced them to my Father's headstone, with the Boy looking less baffled than I would have expected him to. They both said hello, it was nice. Weird, but nice.

Then we took a stroll around the rest of the graveyard, while the Boy and Girl asked me a lot of questions about death. Eventually, we got back to the car, got in and as I was about to pull out of the graveyard the Girl said;

"I've got a shell!"
"Oh, right..."

And then I got a sinking feeling.

"Where did you get it from?"
"One of those."

And she pointed to a grave. And she couldn't remember which one. And she threw a wobbler when I said we had to take it back.

I mean, my Kids are many things, but I hadn't expected them to turn into grave robbers.

When we got back to my Mum's place we found two of her neighbours talking. It transpired that someone in the street they had known since I was seven had died. We made the right kind of sympathetic noises, and then the Boy said;

"We've just been to the graveyard! Which hole was he in?"

And then the Girl said;

"I've got a shell! I got -mumph!"

As I put my hand over her mouth.

Still all this chaos and mayhem has made me realise something.

I really miss my Dad.

Flamed

It's been a weird, bookended week of abuse in our household. It started on Monday when I got a text from the Wife about a conversation she had with the Boy.

"Mum?"
"Yes, Boy?"
"If everyone in the world was in one place..."
"Yes?"
"Would they be able to lift dad up?"

Now that's just plain rude. I've been carrying a bit of holiday weight, it's true. And admittedly that holiday was in 1996. And I have been referred to as a "chubby c***" by two separate people who'd never met before. But...

Aw, the hell with it. The Kid has got a point. Although I do feel that this contempt may have been caused by me. The day before we'd been in the car and, for want of anything sensible to say I asked him;

"If you were a building, Boy, what building would you be?"

He thought about it for a long moment and came up with what he clearly thought was a suitable answer.

"A hotel. So lots of people could live inside me. And then I could charge them money."
"Wouldn't it be better to be a bank?"
"Why?"
"Because then you'd have billions of pounds!"
"But I want people in me."
"Don't say that."
"What?"

And then there was an awkward silence. After a few minutes he said.

"Dad. Can I say something to you?"
"Sure, what?"
"I'm not talking to you."

And to prove it, he carried on talking to me about how he wasn't talking to me until I didn't want him to talk to me any more. Eventually, distracted by a passing car he suddenly said;


"I know what kind of car we drive."
"Really?"

I replied, glad we'd changed the subject. And as sure as eggs is unfertilised chicken ovum, he instantly made me regret it.

"Yeah. It's a Shitroen."
Girl: "What's a Shitroen?


Fortunately, the next day I was removed from the simmering anger of the Boy by the virtue of taking my Ma to the hospital. It was nothing serious, just a check up with her neurologist. I'm quite glad it was nothing serious because getting to the hospital, going to the appointment and getting back home took a total of nine hours all told. This was partly because I had an off-peak train ticket and wasn't about to pay an extra five quid to come home straight after the appointment. So, we sat in a coffee shop and talked for two hours. Weirdly we got to talking about my inability to attract women in my youth, which led to this beautiful moment between a mother and son.

"I spent three days in Amsterdam, everyone else had a great time and the only person I pulled was a mental German."
"A man?"

I mean, seriously. I'm married. I've got two Kids. When are my parents going to believe I'm not gay?

When I got back home I assumed (wrongly) that the Boy had forgiven me. Turns out, he hadn't.

"Boy, how about I teach you how to tell the time?"
"I'm trying to lick my foot at the moment."
"Wh-? Just... come here. Look at the clock."
*Sigh*
"So when the big hand is pointing at twelve and the little hand is pointing at six, what's the time?"
"Stupid o'clock."

I gave up at that point. The Boy, however did not give up. At the end of the week, as I picked him up from school he said;

"We're going to make you do lots of exercise when you get home, dad."
"Really? Why?"
"You don't get enough exercise."
"What? I cycle to work! I do about forty miles a week!"
"Yeah, but you haven't changed. You still look like that."
"What?"
*Singing* "Fatman! Fatman!"