God, kids are fucking stupid sometimes. They’re just idiots – brainless, clueless, dumb as fuck, thick as shit. My son Rico, for example, makes Sarah Palin look like Richard Dawkins. He’s a moron. He’s a fool.
I bought him a bratwurst the other day. No, don’t worry, fellow veggies, I didn’t eat one myself – but he was really hungry and I thought he looked like he could do with the protein.
So, I gave the bratwurst guy – he was fairly attractive (they’re fairly attractive, aren’t they, the bratwurst guys, they have to carry that portable grill around on them all day long, they’re pretty tough and masculine) – I gave the bratwurst guy 10 cents too much by accident.
“That’s 10 cents too much, you’ve given me here,” he said, friendly enough for a German.
I grinned and touched my forehead, half-disparagingly, half-flirtatiously. Look, he was a fairly attractive bratwurst guy. Whenever a German speaks to me without spitting, tutting, huffing or actually telling me to fuck off out of their country, I try to sneak a tiny, teeny-weeny flirt in there, just a minuscule flirt, scarcely worth mentioning really: “I’ve always been bad at maths,” I said, and then Rico and I walked away from him, while mustard and ketchup – Rico always insists on having both – and sausage juice dribbled deliciously down his (Rico’s) chin. I must admit, I did feel slightly tempted to kiss him on the chin just so I could taste a bit of sausage juice, but I controlled myself.
We went and sat down on a bench so he could finish his bratwurst. As soon as he’d finished it, he turned to me, and said, in the most judgmental, severe, “God-sometimes-I-wish-my-mother-wasn’t-such-a-useless-Ausländerin-Whorebag” voice imaginable:
“So, Mum, in Germany, just so you know, when you buy Wurst from a man, in Germany you don’t need to tell the man how you were like in your lessons at school. In Germany the people don’t interest themselves for such things. They just want to give you the Wurst, and have the money. So don’t say that again, okay?”
I just nodded, like I was really grateful for this life advice regarding Wurst-purchasing scenarios, but secretly I was thinking: “I only told him I was crap at maths because I got the money wrong, you fool. I didn’t tell him about my marks in geography, or my brilliance in drama and English Lit, for Christ’s sake. Or how I wanted to do art but Mrs. Turbick thought I only had it in me to do comics – for fun. The bitch. GOD, children are fools. They are idiots. Idiots! Imbeciles. Don’t judge him, Jacinta, it’s not his fault. He’s only seven. He can’t help it. He’s just an idiot.”
Still, I was an idiot, too, when I was a kid. I thought idiotic things all day long. When we started Junior school, we learned in assembly about how that king – Herod, I think his name was – how he made Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem for a census because he was thinking of going to war. And I thought they meant The War. The War. You know, everyone drinking carrot tea and putting eyeliner on their legs and having sex with Ralph Fiennes during air raids. World War Two! THE WAR.
Yep. I thought Christianity was, like, 40 years old. And I literally thought Jesus had been born at Christmas and then died at Easter. I thought he grew old extra quick, because he was the son of God and that.
Also, I thought the Pope was like Father Christmas.
“So, Mum,” I said. “There’s only ever been one Father Christmas, right?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“He never gets older, and he never dies.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the same man.”
“Yep.”
“Always, even in the Olden Days.”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t die?”
“Nope.”
“So when they talk about Father Christmas in the Olden Days, it’s the same one as nowadays`”
“Yes, exactly, Cinty,” said my mum, encouragingly. “He’s immortal.”
I sighed. “Just like that Pope man, huh? He’s never died, either. They had him in the Olden Days.”
“Erm, no Cint.”
“Yeah, Mum. He was in the Olden Days with King Henry VIII! He was! He’s like Father Christmas.”
“No, no, Cint,” my mum said, politely. “They change the Pope sometimes. When one of them dies they get another one to do it.”
“Oh,” I said, almost disappointed, really. “I thought he was like Father Christmas.”
Plus, I used to really think a lot about the dinosaurs. A lot. I had this book all about the dinosaurs and how the palaeontologists worked out how big they were from checking out their fossils and that. I couldn’t – FOR THE LIFE OF ME – work out how they could tell from fossils what their names were.
“This one was called Allosaurus,” my mum would say, pointing.
I’d pout, all sceptical. “How do they KNOW what they called each other?” I’d demand. And she’d just cackle at me.
Now I’m a grown-up, I know what she was thinking. She was thinking: “Fucking HELL. Children. Are. Fucking. Idiots. Sometimes.”