The Kids from The Creek

My Dear Princess & Dear Fellows,

Lemon amused me again today with stories of her children. As it turns out, she has 4 of them. A son of 25, a daughter of 22 and then two younger boys aged 11 and 9.

"I thought with a big gap between them I would know what mistakes to avoid," she sighed. "As it turns out there were a whole bunch of new mistakes to make."

When she got home from work yesterday, Lemon was waylaid by her youngest son. "We need to talk," he said.

"That sounds serious," I said.

"That's how he talks," she told me. Apparently the conversation went like this:

LEMON: So okay, let's talk. 
SON: No. Not here. Can we go to your bedroom?
LEMON: You're worrying me now.
SON: And close the door.
LEMON: Close the door?
SON: Sshhh. Dad might hear and get angry.
LEMON: You'd better start talking. You're making me very nervous.
SON: It's just that I'm very disappointed with myself. My behaviours have let me down. 
LEMON: What? What is it??
SON: I had a confrontation with a girl.
LEMON: Just TELL ME what happened.
SON: She was being very confronting and I was feeling threatened.
LEMON: What happened?
SON: She was exhibiting bullying behaviour and so I responded in an inappropriate manner.
LEMON: What actually HAPPENED?
SON: I reacted in a way that was not conducive to harmony.

"His vocabulary is really good!" I said.

"THIS is how he talks!" said Lemon. "It is REALLY bloody frustrating. We went on like that for about half an hour before I got it out of him that he told a girl she was rubbish at football and she told him to piss off."

Apparently when she finally got this revelation out of him they left the room and his dad instantly wanted to know what had been going on.

"I had a good talk with mum," said the boy, drawing a line under things. "Now I think we can move past it." Which just made dad angrier.

She conceded that he is a very good speaker. "But he and his sister wind each other up! Man, they are terrible! He even made her cry once by telling her she was fat."

Apparently she told him that he was NEVER to say anything hurtful like that again. So the next time they got into a fight, Lemon glowered at him and the words, "Well anyway, you're FAT!" died in his mouth.

"I could see him thinking," said Lemon, as his face reddened and his fists balled.

"You!" he said. "You... you... looking like a pregnant lady person!!"

Obviously Lemon bollocked him. "But I didn't say she was FAT!" he wailed. "I just described how she LOOKS!"

He has been singled out for a local project in which a social anthropologist is talking to kids from his neighbourhood. Cannon's Creek is apparently a bit of a black spot in terms of economy, education etc, so this person is doing research into the aspirations of local kids. As a particularly thoughtful and eloquent child, his teacher volunteered Lemon's son.

"What ARE your aspirations?" Lemon asked him when she found out.

"Oooh, I already know this," he told her. This is going to be good, she thought.

"I want..." he said dreamily, "I want..." as if he could barely contain his crazy childhood dreams, "I want to work in MacDonalds."

"What?!?" said Lemon. She had been expecting "Rock Star".

It turns out that his sister had worked there and he thought that was the best thing ever. When she had quit, he was distraught, "But whyyyyyy??" he asked her.

"You do know my job is not just eating chips all day, right?" she asked him, but he wasn't listening.

"I would work with the chips and the Coca-Cola machine," he replied.

Lemon asked him if he had a backup plan in case his MacDonalds dreams should turn to naught. 

"KFC?" he replied.

KFC my bahookie. I expect this kid will be running the country in 20 years time.

S.