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MWANA WA KANGA
Brussels: If you suffer from the urge to ask about somebody
else’s kids, kill it off fast. Because nothing sets
off a parent on a marathon speech like the subject called
their child.
I’ve had much occasion to regret popping that polite
question: ‘how are the kids?’ Oh you should
see little junior (no really I shouldn’t)… He’s
grown all big and now plays in the Kids League (so do a
lot of other fat lazy kids).
He’s so smart, his teacher says he will be an astronaut
one day (is your teacher also a fortune teller?) I have
great hopes for him going to Harvard but I would rather
he became a doctor. Or maybe an engineer. Oh wait, I think
he should become a lawyer, just like that fellah who sprang
O.J Simpson from jail…uuuuh Johnny Cockroach or something.
(Cochran, Cochran, and let the poor dead guy alone.)
In the intervening years, wonder-kid dumps football for
the more interesting playstation, grows round and bulky
and Harvard …. who said anything about Harvard? Who
needs hard work when you can cruise around in the latest
turbo charged intercooler creating a lot of enemies (men)
while getting all the girls?
Forgive me therefore, I am a little cynical about all this
baby cool. Nay, I was always cynical. When my little rascal
was born, I just couldn’t understand what all the
gaga was about. He was squishy squirmy and quite frankly
looked like something out of an alien film. You couldn’t
get me to touch him. And when people asked me how he was,
I didn’t mind answering he was still ugly and funny.
A terrible thing to say about a baby? Well maybe, but also
a very honest one. I like to think that kids are like a
good wine. They get sweeter with age. And if kept too long
in the house they begin to go bad. Yours truly has had reason
to ask himself why in the world I thought that that girl
across the street was the sweetest thing my foolish eyes
ever saw.
I dreamed about her all day, imagining all the unholy stuff
we could get up to and wondered if she would ever notice
me. Why, I wondered, wasn’t she calling me, seeing
how I loved her? Well there were a couple of simple answers.
One, she didn’t have my number and two I had never
told her how I felt. (She was supposed to get that through
telepathy.)
Eventually some bloke plucked the courage to ask her out
and she said yes. He wasn’t much to look at but fortune
truly favours the brave.
Twenty years later I am proud of my cowardice. A trio of
kids down the road, the beautiful swan aint beautiful no
more. And long gone is my infatuation.
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