Just a Thought... naked children (oo-err)

Why is it that every single person has a photo of themselves naked? Usually as children.

Not only are you naked but often you are in a nude situation with some other kids you have absolutely no recollection of.

First, why do parents photograph their children when they are in the process of bathing? Is it really necessary? I understand that, yes, children are covered in dirt, poo or general detritus 99% of the time and that remaining one per cent is when they actually are in the bath but why the need for a photograph? I thought photographs were reserved for special events but apparently not.

When I was a kid my dad use to put me in my high chair to eat my lunch, naked, and let nature take its course. After I had “had my fill” he’d literally hose me off with the garden hose. Luckily there’s no picture of that. I guess I didn’t look as cute covering my face in food and shitting myself at the same time as I did in a bubble bath. Who would’ve thought?

Second, why do parents always seem to dump their kids in the bath with other random kids? It’s as if parents have little hang-outs so they jam all the kids in the bath to amuse themselves. Given that there is photographic evidence I assume it isn’t unsupervised.

Every person has a photo of themselves bathing with other children. If I bathed with these people now I would freak out. Not only would we not fit into a bath tub as we did back in the day but there would be too much hair and privacy being exposed.

Maybe parents do this because kids never stay still. It makes sense to put them in a slippy sided container (as you would a spider) whilst you struggle to maintain your hair and sanity. Then once you have attempted to pull yourself together you realise these little wee ones aren’t so bad after all and begin to gather snapshots of them with beards made of bubble bath or chewing the head of a rubber duck.

Chances are if I am ever a parent I will end up taking snapshots of my widdle babies when they are getting all squeaky clean. I assume they will be my own children as well...

Girls These Days...

Why are parents letting their children gad about in mini-skank outfits? Why are they letting their little girls roam the earth looking like real life “Bratz” dolls?

Okay. Parents are in trouble when their kids are lying face down on the floor of the store thrashing their little limbs around, face red with rage screaming for “that pink, glittery boob tube!” Tough times. I get it.

I guess the really sad part is that kids want to dress this way. You know the way I mean. Tiny scraps of plaid fabric that apparently result in a skirt teamed with a tight fitted mid-drift exposing shirt that reads something like “bad girl” or “rock star” (for the sake of our society I hope neither of these statements are true) whilst they totter along in high heel glittery shoes with their overly crimped, teased, combed hair bobbing and adorned with various plastic junky clips and a tiny and pointless handbag containing nothing. 

Whatever happened to gingham dresses? And little sandals with ladybirds and butterflies on them?

I remember as a kid my favourite outfit consisted of a florescent green, yellow and blue striped, faux-angora turtleneck sweater teamed with some khaki corduroy trousers. When I wore these things I thought I looked sophisticated and awesome. Looking back I realise I looked like a total retard. Nonetheless these are lessons we must learn.

I got to high school and realised girls my age were dressing like young women – young adults even (though to me that meant they were wearing jeans and a tee-shirt but you get the idea). My friends had matching accessories and styled hair. I went home found everything in my wardrobe that was red – pants, shirt, shoes and hair clips and gave my hair a vicious brush and went out into the world looking, once again, like a total fool. But I was sure this was what was necessary. The next outing would involve me wearing everything blue or orange and that is what makes you a kid. You are learning. Learning how to dress, what suits you, what styles are best and so on and so forth. The fact is you need to learn this for yourself – not have your favourite celebrity and store jam their style down your throat.

To this day I still look at photos of myself from a couple years prior and shudder at the outfit choices I made but I don’t regret it. I mean my kids need something to laugh at, right?

So as a message to the tweens that roam the shopping centres and are far better styled than I am – wear stuff that’s your age! There’s nothing wrong with dressing your age because, believe me, if you try to dress as a 13 year old later – it will be a big mistake. A huge mutton-dressed-as-lamb mistake.

And for the love of all things holy – take off the push-up bras! There’s nothing to “push-up” so relax! Nature will prevail in its own time.

Toys

Remember when you were a child and the night before your birthday seemed to take forever because you just couldn’t wait to rip open your sweet presents? Eventually the dawn would come and you would race into your parents’ bedroom screaming “I WANT MA PRESENTS! WHERE MA PRESENTS!?”. Bleary eyed but masking their belligerence at being woken up so early for the sake of your special day they produce a pile of presents and lay them before you. So many choices... I always liked leaving the biggest one until last to get a better excitement climax out of the whole experience.

Little does a child realise that ripping off the packaging and playing with the new toy are two completely conflicting activities – time wise that is. Because removing the wrapping takes about 3 seconds whereas trying to remove the toy from overly complicated box packaging takes eons. Like Barbie dolls. Barbie would smile at you through the plastic window of her prison waiting to be played with. She would look perfect in the box but it isn’t until you try to get her out that you realise she has been taped, stapled and roped in there – as have her useless accessories. There are plastic ties around her wrists, ankles and neck as if every Barbie doll tried to escape at the factory of their creation. It’s like bondage for Barbie – she is smiling after all.

Why is it they need to do this to children? By the time I had opened the biggest present my parents had probably fallen back asleep with their eyes open just to fool me and would be unable to help with the opening process. Meaning Barbie would cheerfully grin at you whilst you attempted to use your useless child digits to release her. Basically you need everything short of a blow torch to get these suckers out. I’m sure it’s the same with any toy. Trucks, baby dolls, dinosaur toys and even blocks have proven nigh impossible to get out of its packaging without a major struggle.

After seeing “Toy Story” I actually wonder if they are trying to escape... though didn’t the toys in the movie like being played with? All I know is after I saw that film I tried to trick my toys into talking to me. I’d leave the room and then race back in to catch them unawares. No luck. I’d sit down on the floor with them and reason “it’s okay, guys, I know you can talk... just show me. I won’t tell anyone else.”     

But they never spoke to me...

Or did they?

My First Pet

You know when you play that game about figuring out your stripper name and you take the name of your first pet? Well now you do. Anyway I was thinking about it and I remembered my first pet was a hermit crab named Claudia. Now Claudia had an unfortunate demise... that is we got the house fumigated and both my brother’s and my crab passed away. Or rather slowly and painfully asphyxiated whichever you like.

Here’s the kicker. I was having family dinner the other week and I told this story – after we’d all worked out our stripper names (mine’s Claudia Chelmer) I told the story of poor choking Claudia and mum chimed in with – Claudia didn’t choke she cooked!

?

I’m sorry, mum, what?

“Your crab Claudia got really sick after the fumigation - we didn’t know it would affect them so badly and in the end she lost her legs one by one. The poor thing only had little eyes flitting about – it was still alive and suffering – so I dropped it in hot water”.

Now that’s the humane story I heard. Here’s what I visualised...

I find out seventeen years later that my poor crab, my first pet, my only crustacean love was boiled alive? How psychotic is that? Hadn’t she suffered enough? I imagined my poor little crab thrashing its eyes about in agony (that was only thing it could thrash around given it didn’t have any more limbs) crying silently that I’d abandoned it... trying to escape. To which mum answered “Well it didn’t move after I dumped it in”.

Good point. R.I.P. Claudia.

Board Games

Recently I have been overcome with the urge to play all my childhood favourite board games. Actually scratch that “childhood favourite” part... it was more the games that were available in childhood and everybody felt obligated to play.

On re-playing these games with willing victims and not figments of my imagination—no Mrs Crumplebottom you did not win that game of Scrabble—no you didn’t. Well I don’t consider joolax a word even now. Yeah the made up Dictiona—you stay where you are! Don’t pinch me! Get back in your tent!

...

Now...Where was I? Oh yeah board games. I’ve realised that board games are way too easy. So easy in fact that they become bored games. That’s right I went there... pun town. So I took it upon myself to improve these games for the avid mature aged gamer like myself... I got lazy with some and decided that a description was adequate enough. Here we go...

Scrabble – Out of the 100 pieces given 50 of them should be “x”s. This would probably result in the “XXX” version of the game and I really doubt there would be many complaints...

Guess Who –

Chess – All the players are bishops. White’s bishops are on the white squares. Black’s bishops are on the black squares.

Monopoly (or should now be called “Monotony”)

Backgammon – No one knows how to play this game anyway. At least I don’t. So it’s hard enough.

Connect Four –

Snakes and Ladders – You’re probably expecting me to just say “lots more snakes” but I’ve got waaaay more imagination than that you sceptical so and so... The game would now be called “Murderous flesh-eating half-crocodile-half-sharks armed with cannons and shooting poisonous darts and Ladders”. It has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? Basically no matter where you are on the game board these evil bastards will send you right back to the start. And kill you.

Battleship – I was tossing around the idea of the hippy/Green Peace version of this game which means that there would be no ships to place and the box would be covered in flower illustrations and ban the bomb symbols. Weed may be required for full experience – NOT INCLUDED

Jenga – Each block is different to the last. One might be slightly rounded another may be square so that when the game is started it looks as deformed and precarious as it would after several turns.

And finally Twister –

But seriously - where is Wally?

Grrrreeeeetings Wally Watchers!

 I was thinking about books and television shows I really enjoyed as a kid. “Where’s Wally?” was one of them. Nothing like screwing up your eyesight by very nearly pressing your face against the pages/tv screen in a desperate hope of finding Wally and his various hangers-on. In my case, I was at after school care battling with the other unloved children to scream “I FOUND HIM” first. Having said that... has anyone really stopped and thought about this poor fella?

Wally. Why is he always missing? Why does this young man feel the need to hide from prying eyes? He’s clearly a sensitive young man using a mask of happiness which disguises his tortured soul which probably came about because of a childhood experience of being left alone in a cosmic space of eternal emptiness and little human interaction. Hey – it happens.

Here’s another weird thing - he’s only a young man yet he has a CANE. Why? Does he have a leg impairment? A false leg? Muscle death? Who does this guy think he is? House? No. Apparently in the tv programme it was a ‘magical’ cane... sounds awfully suspicious to me... probably smuggling drugs into different lands with that cane... After all he has a different name in every country - Wally, Waldo, Charlie, Vili, Walter and many more! Interpol is probably, at this minute, desperately shouting “but seriously people, where the f*** is Wally??” Perhaps he’s a drug lord or perhaps... he’s under witness protection and is constantly seeking seclusion from Odlaw – his abusive lover! It all fits. Odlaw desperate to find Wally/Waldo wherever he roams to get

a) a little violent sumthin sumthin or

b) his drug stick or

c) all of the above!

Maybe Odlaw is Wally’s pimp and he’s trying to get back the money Wally owes him for his last trick... Odlaw doesn’t look that threatening and he seems pretty hopeless at catching him... and his name isn’t very pimpy... I mean O-man would be better... or Od-mutha-fucka. Anyway he dresses pretty pimpin... or very bee like...

Maybe Wally is an escaped mental patient where the uniform is red and white stripes – I mean I haven’t seen anyone walking the streets in a red and white striped long sleeve shirt with matching beanie! Have you? He must be nuts given that his ‘special female friend’, Wenda, looks suspiciously like him. He’s screwing his own sister people! Or maybe he’s a serious narcissist and wants to hook up with someone who is so like him that he no longer has to sticky tape a photograph of himself to his partners’ faces. Now that I think about this... it furthers the case that this psycho needs to be brought to justice and he’s being aided by none other than Wizard Whitebeard. Well if that aint some reference to crack I don’t know what is.

We must unite, people! Find this visually impaired freak! And his equally blind dog – I mean really a dog in glasses? Come on. That is some yuppie bullshit right there.   

Someone needs to bring this sight impaired, limping, drug pushing, incest loving, law breaking, badly dressed whore to justice! This isn’t a game. This isn’t just a happy children’s programme. It’s serious. He’ll come to your house, fill you with drugs and cane whip you for his sick and twisted pleasure. And then force you to wear red and white striped clothes FOREVER! AHHHHHHH!!