According to anyone born before the 1990’s it’s something to do with sugar, spice, slugs, snails or puppy dog tails if I remember correctly. I’m not sure if this would still be deemed politically correct in todays kindergarten classrooms, anyway the question’s a bit redundant as I recently stumbled across another definition.
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| thanks digitzedchaos |
Over the past 12 months I’ve been informed on numerous occasions and in no uncertain terms, that a child actually comprises a combination of the following items…
Half a cabbage
A head of broccoli
A 2 litre bottle of soda water
A plate of delicately positioned spinach and ricotta rolls
A street directory (large print)
A pair of runners
and a Kit Kat
The source of my new found wisdom may surprise you.
You’d be forgiven for leaning towards a nutritionist, child psychologist or even a gynaecologist. Actually there was not one ‘ist’ involved. No the wisdom was extolled via a red flashing light, and an annoying high pitched sound that continued until I begrudgingly acknowledged its brilliance.
The first time I was shown ‘the light’, I was on my way to a party in Cooper (my Mazda MX5, see other posts under motoring). Exiting the garage and traveling less than fifteen minutes down the road Cooper began beeping incessantly.
‘What?’ I yelled at the dashboard after checking my door was closed, ‘there can’t be anything wrong with you, your not that old, what?’ Then the noise was joined by a flashing red light that completely diverted my eyes from the road and onto the dashboard. ‘What?‘
‘Yes, yes I see the seat belt sign flashing, but I’ve got my belt on see, now what is it?’ my mind racing about oil leaks, head gaskets, and a myriad of other things I know nothing about, aside from the horrendous bill that accompanies them.
According to the Safety Controller in Cooper’s computer system, the assortment of food stuffs neatly piled onto the passenger seat were enough to register as a human being, a small child evidently.
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© The Ponder Room
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Worried that I might be endangering the life of my imaginary child, the Safety Control kept bleeping at me until I took action and secured said items with a seatbelt.
Meanwhile all the flashing and beeping had distracted me so much that I nearly ran into a teenager barrelling towards me on his skateboard. Skateboard Dude was now in real danger of becoming an extremely laid back, blonde smear on wheels, thanks to the MX5’s safety precaution system.
All tragedies averted, both inside and outside the car, the only thing left to do was to continue driving at a snails pace so as to avoid any further accidents.
Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t worried about lessening the life of my cauliflower passenger. No I was worried about the impact of an accident on some poor young traffic cop, who’d be forced to end his career on stress leave, after being horrified by the carnage of seeing my ‘little fella’ strewn across the road.
Sometimes you have to ponder whether we’re being over protected.
5 Comments
Haha, laughed out loud at this piece. Well done.
LOL, and here I was expecting some pearls of wisdom to help me in my parenting adventure! I got a good laugh instead. It is definitely very important to take good care of your broccoli 🙂
Amanda – pearls of wisdom, me?!? you should know better Amanda 🙂
chris – thanks heaps
Love the photo too.
Ta Chris…the swing or the re-enactment 🙂