“I am so stressed!” she yelled, hair askew, snot running from her nose, eyes heaving with tiredness and dishevelment abundant.
” ‘Stressed’? You’re five and a half bloody years old, that word isn’t even part of your vocabulary!’
“Yes it is. And if I had my mood ring, it’d say ‘stressed’.”
“Good heavens above, how absurd! You need to stop thinking about that word and focus on being a kid.”
“I HATE HAVING TO DO EVERYTHING EVERYONE TELLS ME! I WISH I NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER HAD PARENTS!”
My reaction was instant, the words having hit me like a laser beam, searing my flesh with their ferocity, their hot, stinging intention having shot through the air like a red-hot platinum arrow. It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t right.
I laughed.
I laughed a lot actually.
Which didn’t do much to appease the five-and-a-half going on 14 year old dilettante.
My wife looked up from her book, cast a sigh, and returned promptly to the pages.
The amateur dramatist sniveled.
And I tried to figure out when we got fired. Not five minutes earlier I’d been engaged as the potential story-reader for the night, but here I was, unceremoniously given the old tin-tack* simply because I had told her to put on pyjamas, wash her face and brush her teeth.
I took stock of the situation. Unemployment actually didn’t sound so bad. I could go off and watch the football highlights. I could go across the street and see my buddy. I could go downstairs and play music loudly. I could do nothing. I could relax with my hairy therapist*. Oh the freedom!
“OK!” I announced, “I’m not your Dad anymore, right?”
“Right!”
“OK, sounds fine to me.”
“Fine!”
“Yup.”
“Hmmph.”
“OK, I’m off now, no story-reading – “
“BUT YOU SAID YOU’D READ THE STORY?!!!!”
“Hang on a minute, I just got sacked from being your Dad so no, I’m no longer the story reader. You can read it for yourself. And you can go into your room and do that, no further instructions.”
“Really?”
“Yup. And guess what? I won’t even remind you to pee right before you go to bed. Because if you have an accident because you didn’t pee right before bed, I won’t get up and strip the bed or find clean sheets. You can just crash on the couch!”
“But what about blankets?”
“Good grief girl, there’s three of them out here, pick a couple, you’ll figure it out.”
“But I want a story Dada, you said you’d read it!”
“Remember, I’m fired.”
“Daaaada!”
“Ahhhhhhhh…are you now saying that you sort of want a Mum and Dad?”
“Well…I want a Mum and Dad sometimes and I don’t want to do everything I’m told!”
“So you want to re-hire me to read a story?”
(smirking) “Yes!”
“And then fire me again when it’s bedtime?”
“YES!”
“Hmmm…not sure I want to take the job under those conditions…I’ll tell you what…you can have no Mum and Dad between the hours of 8pm and 8.30am.”
“What’s the time now?”
“7.45.”
“Yay, so at 8′oclock I’ll get up and come out here and watch TV!”
“But we’ll be in here so you won’t be able to.”
“But you won’t be my parents so you can’t tell me what to do!”
“We might not be your parents then, but we’ll have been here first and that means we have first dibbs.”
“I’ll turn it off then.”
“And I’ll yell at you.”
“But you can’t because you won’t be my Dad.”
“But I will be someone else living here who also gets a say in what happens, and what will have happened is that I will have been here first so you’ll have to find something else to do.”
She screwed her face up and threw me a stink-eye right down the middle. Clearly this ‘sacking your parents’ thing was not as easy as it sounded.
“Well, I’ll just stay up all night then.”
“OK.”
“Really?”
“Sure. But just know that in the morning, you’ll be getting your own breakfast, get your own lunch and get to school by yourself.”
“I’ll drive!”
“No you won’t. They’re my keys and you can’t have them. I’m not telling you that as a father, I’m telling you that as the car’s owner.”
“Well how will I get there?”
“You can walk. Or find a ride from across the street. Figure it out! You’re the one without parents. in fact, stop asking me questions all the time, it’s not like I’m your Dad or anything!”
There was a long pause as she surveyed the scenario. She was, at that moment, 5 minutes from being a free agent, but it was becoming clear that such agency came with other rather more troubling issues. Doing things for yourself. Having to think about things other than fun things.
“Daaaaddy…my feet hurt. Will you rub them after you read a book?”
“Does this mean I’m re-hired?”
“Yes!”
Thank goodness…I didn’t fancy unemployment really.
