Thursday, 13 August 2009

On the treadmill...




...something just as embarrassing as the Scotland football result against Norway? Surely not.

While watching the first part of the first half of the game, it wasn’t Caldwell that cleared the ball from the penalty box. It was me. In my head at least, it was I who gave the ball a quick punt up the park, keeping it out of the danger area.

The problem was that the TV I was watching the game on was mounted on a treadmill at the gym. I took an imaginery swipe at the ball. Forgot to tell my leg I was only pretending and missed my footing. Have you ever tumbled on a treadmill? Not a good look. I was saved from falling arse over tit by the safety cord attached to my t-shirt. A stumble. A quick look around me. Thankfully nobody caught my foolishness and I went back to running myself into a standstill. Which to be honest, takes all of ten minutes.



The wee fella was watching TV the other night. Well, he was copying what his father does and was surfing the channels, watching nothing in particular. He caught two seconds of Doctor Who – which is now considered to be lame, because someone at school said so; and Torchwood –he hates Captain Jack because he sacrificed a wee boy to save millions of other children. Every single life is important, he told me. Captain Jack is a loser. So there. Anywho, he stops, thinks and looks at me...


...see if you ever go back in time, Dad? Don’t touch yourself.


...wha...? Was my considered response. My first thought was a Nun wagging her finger at me and telling me I would grow hairs on the palms of my hands and would almost certainly Go To Hell if I ever kept my hands in my pockets. All I ever had in there was a penny, a half-chewed toffee and a bogey-ridden paper hanky. Why would I want to keep my hands in there?


....when you go back in time, he repeats with all the patience of someone talking to the village idiot, don’t touch yourself because it causes ripples in the future.


...what, like feelings of inadequacy and a guilt complex, I ask.


...weird. He shakes his head. Just weird.

3 comments:

  1. That is one eeerrie kid.

    But does he like FOOTBALLL????!

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  2. no - he HATES it. The only sport he enjoys is asking his father strange questions.

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  3. ... and I for one hope he continues doing just that. All your blogs make me laugh but the exchanges with the Wee Man are always a pure delight. I think it's a tactical game he's playing. All these questions confront his dad with major existential anxieties but, having softened you up with them, one day he'll reveal the secret of the universe to you.

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