The wisdom of parenting. At times, something to marvel. At others, something so wonderfully stupid, like calling a ginger child, Red.
Shortly after my narrow - yet harrowing stint - as a part-time superhero, my parents gave me another most audacious gift. We were very lucky little sausages as children. We got proper "exy" (short for excellent) presents.
Our father was/is an Austrian sausage, so you see, no such behaviour would have been tolerated. He would often remind me that when he was a child, he made his own presents out of blocks of wood. You wonder if after finishing his latest toy, he feigned surprise and delight when after three weeks of chiselling, he gave it to himself. Cheers of Austrian child-joy, almost certainly followed by some neatly focused sobbing into a bad-ass Austrian Teddy made of Pine.
Perhaps as a vent for the Teddy bear indignation, I remember my dad getting really pissed off with us at times. One Christmas, a kerfuffle over our toys irritated my dad so much he directly threatened, "to send our RC (Remote Control) cars to a Bulgarian orphanage", were we not to stop effing about.
What stuck, was the specific detailing of where he was going to send our cars. It was going to be an orphange in Bulgaria. Not Hungry. Not Hamburg. But Bulgaria. An orphanage to be precise. Not a home for impovrished children, not the Red Cross; but an orphanage. The threat did add a vivid layer as I could actually picture some Eastern European lad called Helmut, 11, skidding my car up the dusty confines of his Alpine institution.
So you couldn't say we were spoilt. We appreciated and were perhaps a little over aware that we were lucky. Every Christmas growing up I would feel a slight uncomfortable guilt, as if that poor Bulgarian orphan, Helmut, was peering in through the trees at our dining table. My dicomfort was such that I could feel his stare lasering the shit plastic monkey toy that fell from my cracker; better than any toy he'd see all Christmas.
And so you see, it was not without a twinge of apprehension that I went to school with a brand new, black leather brief case. This wasn't a posh private school. This was the local comprehensive; a hive of children with varying tones of a green school uniform; like the powers that be knew the people were poor, and allowed parents to be ambivalent when digging around for their fourth child's PE shorts.
As I walked through the playground towards the main school, it was as if I was carrying a box of fox cubs - all eyes gravitated on me. Only I wasn't carrying something fluffy and amazing that was going to make me instantly popular and win the friendship of grubby urchins. I was carrying a black brief case that was about to get me bullied and laughed at.
By morning break it had been opened, tampered with and emptied. By lunch, I wanted the whole thing to be stolen so that I could feel anonymous again. By home time finally made an appearance, I left the gates, not holding it proudly by the handle like a yuppie, but on each side like lunchbox filled with sick.
I can't really blame my father for projecting his own goals and visions onto me. He was doing a kind thing; giving me a taste of being a grown up; letting me feel what it was like to be the business. I can't blame my father. But I will. What was he thinking? Was it, 'Oh, this'll show all the other children that Archibald is a no-nonsense child with strong mathematic capabilities and a fine understanding of how to use a combination code?'
Or perhaps, 'Oh a briefcase is just what a nine year old needs to carry Star Wars figures, a collection of rubbers (erasers, not contraceptives), his pack lunch and Superman costume.' Whatever he was thinking, it certainly wasn't, 'Hang on, sending him to that school with a briefcase will just about get him bullied'.
It is testament to nothing but the luck that my briefcase made it home without having the word WANKER carved into the fake black leather, and testament to common sense that I didn't bring it to that school ever again.
May 28, 2009
The awkward moment I wore a Superman costume to school.
For my eighth birthday my parents got me a Superman outfit.
One of those silky numbers that clung to whatever bulging muscles you had as a portly eight year old. Inspired, I decided that the coolest idea I’d ever had in all my eight years, was to secretly wear the costume under my school uniform and then wander around all knowing and heroic.
Of course I wasn’t ruling out the possibility that Catherine Owen might, by some twist of unimaginable fate, lose a marble up her nose again and need rescuing.
That morning I got dressed, twice. On went the costume probably over my pants (although I do question whether Clarke Kent put his Y-fronts over his costume or under), and then on went the school uniform.
You’d think the cape would cause bunching, but like I said, I was a portly eight year old, and besides which Matel – the makers of my costume – were a little stingy providing a full length of crimson for the cape, so it just about fitted. Off I went to school, looking a little more padded than normal, and went about my day.
Unbeknown to me, it was PE that day and we all got changed in class. As everyone began excitedly ripping off their uniforms, I stood there frozen. Nothing to do with Kryptonite, just the fear of looking like a total arse and being ridiculed for the rest of my school life.
This was the sort of thing that ruins your playground-cred as a child and the horrible little vultures in my school would have torn me and my tightly fitting Superman costume to pieces.
So I made like Superman and bolted for the toilets. Thank God Mrs.Hetherington let me leave otherwise I’d have probably involuntarily peed myself there and then. I legged it down the corridor, into the bathrooms and into a cubicle.
I do wonder today whether whilst ripping off my jumper, shirt and tie, the irony of the situation struck me at all. Does irony strike you when you’re eight? I can’t remember pausing to think “Blimey, my very own catastrophe”.
I’m also pretty sure the thought of Catherine Owen and a wedged marble didn’t enter my head either. Pretty much just pure panic. Panic at getting the uniform off, panic at getting the costume off, panic at getting the uniform back on again, and panic at getting back to my class in time.
By the time I did make it back, the class room was empty. Some Superman I’d make. No Catherine Owen. No wedged marble. Just a fat sweating eight year old, with a Superman costume stuffed up his jumper.
From that day on I hung up my crimson cape and silky costume and just watched Catherine Owen from afar, as she played kiss chase with my nemesis Peter Warren, who incidentally didn’t need a costume to win at bloody everything.
One of those silky numbers that clung to whatever bulging muscles you had as a portly eight year old. Inspired, I decided that the coolest idea I’d ever had in all my eight years, was to secretly wear the costume under my school uniform and then wander around all knowing and heroic.
Of course I wasn’t ruling out the possibility that Catherine Owen might, by some twist of unimaginable fate, lose a marble up her nose again and need rescuing.
That morning I got dressed, twice. On went the costume probably over my pants (although I do question whether Clarke Kent put his Y-fronts over his costume or under), and then on went the school uniform.
You’d think the cape would cause bunching, but like I said, I was a portly eight year old, and besides which Matel – the makers of my costume – were a little stingy providing a full length of crimson for the cape, so it just about fitted. Off I went to school, looking a little more padded than normal, and went about my day.
Unbeknown to me, it was PE that day and we all got changed in class. As everyone began excitedly ripping off their uniforms, I stood there frozen. Nothing to do with Kryptonite, just the fear of looking like a total arse and being ridiculed for the rest of my school life.
This was the sort of thing that ruins your playground-cred as a child and the horrible little vultures in my school would have torn me and my tightly fitting Superman costume to pieces.
So I made like Superman and bolted for the toilets. Thank God Mrs.Hetherington let me leave otherwise I’d have probably involuntarily peed myself there and then. I legged it down the corridor, into the bathrooms and into a cubicle.
I do wonder today whether whilst ripping off my jumper, shirt and tie, the irony of the situation struck me at all. Does irony strike you when you’re eight? I can’t remember pausing to think “Blimey, my very own catastrophe”.
I’m also pretty sure the thought of Catherine Owen and a wedged marble didn’t enter my head either. Pretty much just pure panic. Panic at getting the uniform off, panic at getting the costume off, panic at getting the uniform back on again, and panic at getting back to my class in time.
By the time I did make it back, the class room was empty. Some Superman I’d make. No Catherine Owen. No wedged marble. Just a fat sweating eight year old, with a Superman costume stuffed up his jumper.
From that day on I hung up my crimson cape and silky costume and just watched Catherine Owen from afar, as she played kiss chase with my nemesis Peter Warren, who incidentally didn’t need a costume to win at bloody everything.
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