It is Good to Live

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Sometimes events can get the best of me. Deadlines to meet, calls to make. Toilets to unblock, shopping to do, taxes to file.

I think, is it all that important? Better to take a walk, gaze at gardens and listen for birds. Drink a mug of coffee in peace, if that is possible. Talk with a friend and a brother and a sister. Work quickly and right – get it done and then kiss your wife and play with the three kids. And if the to-do list gets too long, then reach for a copy of John Kennedy Toole’s novel “A Confederacy of Dunces.” Ignatius J. Reilly, the fat and slothful central character, has the perfect cure for a paper pileup – dump it in the bin. Or in this day, turn the sheets over and write a story on the back or draw a picture. Make an airplane and throw it out the window and watch it soar or fall to the ground, uneventfully. You can make 30 of them with the kids and see which flies the farthest – and which gets caught and ripped to shreds by your four-ton dog. Wiggle your toes in the sand. Surf in the winter, when the big waves can get freaky but the adrenaline makes it worth it, your heart racing and the rush insurmountable. Laugh and cry. Things can get bad. Take a nap, under the covers. Call your mum and dad for long chats. They’re worth it. And book a flight home.

If this all sounds too sunny, then do like Ignatius J. Reilly and pound down a dozen hotdogs straight from the boiling water, with heaps of ketchup, mustard and relish. Then you’ll be able to laugh and cry and stink out the room.

And that would be a good gag.

Oh, The Things that Lurk in the Light

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There are monsters that lurk in the shadows.

My four-year-old son has to turn off the light to go to the toilet. Inevitably, he’ll miss. But it has to be this way or else Bim Bam Boom will catch him. So don’t turn on the light. This giant lurks in the shadows of its shine.

“Don’t be silly,” I said, flicking on the light.

“No,” he squealed. “Bim Bam Boom!”

So off the lights go again. Fast!

I asked him where this terrible thing is and he pointed to the tiles. I thought, ah ha. Out the window and in the darkness between the city high-rises. “No, there,” he said, pointing to a clump of tiles. “Oh, don’t be silly,” I said. But he’d already run off to his bedroom and ducked under the covers.

I asked his sister, who at six is older and wiser, about this creature that causes such fright. She told me it lives in the clouds and eats dinosaurs and small houses, with everybody inside. All down the hatch. Gulp! Bim Bam Boom loves to roast dinosaur eyes in the oven as a snack. For breakfast he’ll whip up pancakes the size of a city block with hundreds of blueberries and dinosaurs inside. Then he reads big books and plays with his pet, a golden horse. Before he goes to bed he eats bananas, pears and strawberries, hundreds and thousands at a time. He has no money for such a large appetite. He steals everything from those aware and those unaware.

So watch out for Bim Bam Boom, she told me.

To prove it, she took me to the bathroom and told me that when it is night you must keep the lights off because Bim Bam Boom lurks in the light. You can see his terrible profile on the tiles when the light goes on. There he is, she said, turning the lights on for but a few seconds and then off again. I caught a glimpse of his giant chin and great big eyes and his forehead that rises to the ceiling and his mouth that looks wide open and ready to snatch and gobble you down. He was there. So keep the lights off!

Or find another bathroom.

The Case of the Missing Cake

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“Me? Get out of here. It wasn’t me!”

My dad used to eat the rest of the ice cream, so we thought when we were kids, my two brothers and I. We’d carefully put the tub back in the freezer, us three kids having done our best to polish it off. Then in the morning it’d be gone, tub and all.

Hmm.

Put one and two together and it was easy to find the culprit. Who stayed up after we’d gone to bed? Mum and Dad. Mum denied any clandestine munching. So that left Dad. I don’t think we ever questioned him. It was just a given, guilt by association.

I think my two eldest children are now developing such a notion. My six-year-old daughter’s scowling at me right this second. She’s figured it out, so she thinks. What happened to the rest of the cake after she’d gone to bed? Hmm. Who stays up the latest? Hmm. Who’s just put away the clean cake tin (actually Tupperware box)? Hmm.

Well, all the hmms point to me.

So off my daughter runs. “Mummy, mummy. Daddy’s eaten all the cake!” she says.

I don’t hear a rebuttal. Mum’s not contesting the facts or confessing her own involvement. So, I guess, begins an old wives’ tale…