Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Why three-year-olds should concentrate on picking their noses

Arrr, 'tis a fine ship for a shanty adviser.

On Sunday I took my small boy on a child-sized odyssey. We had a great day and many things were learnt, including that if you drag a small child to a ticket window you can buy a 'family funday' ticket which gives you unlimited access to Sydney's buses, trains and ferries for a whole day for $2.50. Ker-ching (I've gotta run the numbers but I'm pretty sure I'm close to making a profit on this whole procreation thing).

So not only was I delighted to be walking around with the giant discount coupon that is my son (who also manages to get me onto planes first and into movies for half price) but he seemed to be having a ball too. He had chips and lemonade at Circular Quay, screamed "wow!" 47 times on the ferry across to Pyrmont and spent exactly six minutes running through the Darwin exhibition at the Maritime Museum; a pretty good three-year-old day.

It wasn't until we were leaving the exhibition that I thought perhaps we could have made more of the day's learning opportunities instead of pegging chips at seagulls and making foghorn noises on the ferry. A Dad and his kid (who looked three to me but could have been four to six years older) were walking in front of us back to the ferry terminal when the Dad said to the kid: "It wasn't until Darwin that scientific rationality and the concept of evolution entered the discussion of the origin of humankind," to which the child answered: "What did people believe in before evolution?" "God, son," came the answer, "divine creation".

They walked on in silence, no doubt deep in un-childlike thought.

Then the kid looked up and saw the sign on the restaurant we were passing. "Y-O-T-S," he cried, triumphant, "that's not how you spell 'yachts'!"

I looked down at my son and pulled a face. My son looked up at me and picked his nose. We said "wow!" all the way home on the ferry.

11 comments:

Mad Cat Lady said...

I suspect that my soon-to-arrive (december) niece may grow up to be like yacht kid. Her dad is terribly geeky.

Kettle said...

Sam send your niece south for a while and we'll teach her to pick her nose.

squib said...

YOTS? Huh? The restaurant was really called that?

Kettle said...

Oh yessy, Squib, it's called 'Yots', to confuse young spellers everywhere.

Sure the restaurant is on the wharf and sure you can see plenty of boats (yachts, even) from the bar, but can we surmise that the Yots Marketing Department is full of geniuses? I think we can pretty safely say no.

Catastrophe Waitress said...

Yots is good, sure
but it can't beat my local
'Camelot Pizza Parlour' in the coolest, most inappropriate namestakes.

i bet those knights LOVED a good pizza.yeah. i bet chicken and bbq sauce was their favourite sort of pizza too.

you did good with that child.
he sounds quite bright - recognising the incorrect spelling there. you should keep him.

Mad Cat Lady said...

lol - in a Tom Holt book, the knights of camelot are still searching for the holy grail and are working delivering pizza.

Kettle said...

Ah Ms P I went to see 'Winged Creatures' tonight and it was rather despairing; now that I'm home you've made everything better with your knights and their bbq sauce. You should have a 1800 number with recordings of Projectivist witticisms that people can call when they're despairing (or have seen despairing films).

Catastrophe Waitress said...

i've often thought that i'd be quite good on one of those 1800 phone number thingies. there i'd be, scrubbing the kitchen floor and unclogging the sink, whispering into the phone with instructions for some trucker bloke from Wagga to lick my stockings, but i don't think the pay's that great. plus imagine the tedium? would it take away from the real life experience of telling Travis from Cooma to lick my stockings? not that i worn stocking since 1992, nor do i know any chaps called Travis.

perhaps you do, Kettle? could you point him in my direction?

Kettle said...

Ms P, I had a look on my company's global directory and there are 87, count them 87! Travises on staff. Sure 83 of them are in the US, one is in Singapore, another in Canada and another in Japan, and one is a Ms Travis, but as soon as I meet one of them I'll send him/her your way!

Catastrophe Waitress said...

oh Mme Kettle i do so admire the way you take this seriously - i knew i could count on you. and the cleverness to utilise your company's resources like that. i think we should start at the top (based on position within the company) and work down. that makes sense. but if there's a way of finding out whether they are any good at upholstery? then those Travises should go directly to the top of the list.

now then.
when are you going to write another post?>!!? hmmmm...

Kettle said...

Ms P I think you should add 'an ability to upholster' to your list of qualities a gentleman caller should have; I'm quite sure Alain and Henri would be excellent upholsterers, don't you think?

Another post? I would but I'm boring even myself tonight. Oh and I can't stop wishing I was Sam Seaborn, which is very distracting.