The Blues

I’ll Have More Variety With That (and I won’t say please)

On August 6, 2010, in Family, Food, by Rosie

One of the things parents seem to hope for is that their kids behave like angels when they’re out. Sure, at home, they can pull hair and punch, spit and spat, kick and bite and say ‘cutter.’

The old expression for this is ‘street angel, home devil’. I knew one of them when I was younger. Alas, I wasn’t one of them, preferring to adopt the title ‘street devil, home biatch.’

It was a mood thing.

Recently, I had the pleasure to be involved with a 9-year old birthday party. Perhaps the place where behaviour is really on show — quirks come to the forefront, tempers are frayed, injustices are obvious — is at one of these. The Idiots holding the party allowed their child to invite everyone from school, hold it on a rainy August day, serve breakfast food, then let the massive amounts of sugar-fueled, pj-clad miscreants run through their home.

Their house used to be well-maintained, aesthetically pleasing, even quite grooveh. Now it is mere landfill on ‘roids.

Seriously, this party was progressing quite well. The child of The Idiots was the centre of attention, her friends (and the entire school) arrived in costume, rain fell on the city and the smell of bacon wafted from the kitchen. The Idiots elected to serve sausages, waffles, hash browns, bacon, toast, to really set the breakfast after school theme. The idea was well accepted. Most of the kids seemed to love the concept of brunch after school.

One of The Idiots is really big on children’s manners. It could be argued that she is quite well-mannered herself and she finds the use of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to be simple niceties that don’t cost anyone anything. In other words, this Idiot is an old-fashioned, judgmental, bossy mothercutter!

Whatevs! When she was serving the children, she noticed an abundance of gorgeous manners, nodded approvingly and gave praise when she thought it was deserved.

The Idiots are no children experts, but the Female Idiot has seen a LOT of kids in her life. Babies, toddlers, tweenies, teens. She’s held them, minded them, nursed them, screamed louder than them, partied with them, bathed them, slapped them (joking!) kissed them and slept with them. She understands the mood of children — may not like it — but gets it. Usually.

One thing the Female Idiot had never come across occurred when she was serving the gazillion birthday kids some bacon and sausages from the pan. They were the first type of food on appearance, although a plate of freshly cut fruit was on the table before the starving hordes.

The Female Idiot smiled at the grand manners, patted a few gorgeous heads, blew approving kisses to those with special dimples and behaviours.

Lo and behold, one of the bazillion children there, perhaps a modern-day Oliver Twist, asked in a loud voice: ‘Um, Idiot? Is this all the food there is? Will there be, um, you know? More variety of food?’

Because really? There was only bacon, sausages and fruit on offer AT THAT STAGE!

Later, when pondering this question, the Female Idiot marvelled at the sophistication of the guests at a child’s birthday party in this day and age. Asked by an adult relative if ‘you gave that kid a greasy like you used to give us?’ The Idiot responded, guiltily, that ‘yes’, she had thrown a dirty look that guest’s way!

Unlike the effect it used to have on The Idiot’s younger relatives, the look of condemnation did not work! Instead, there were a couple more demands and disappointed interjections about the poor array of items.

Oh well. What’s an Idiot to do? Kid’s parties are always feral and fun, but please remember that if you’re holding one — variety is the spice of life, and bringing home the bacon is not the answer to all menus!

This scenario is a fabrication. The Idiots take no responsibility for malnourished children taken home from a birthday party (if The Idiots were real, and they did indeed have bacon!)