Doug PollardLeave the Kids at Home
May 24th 2009 03:00
I have a complaint. It used to be more fun being a gay man than a straight one. For example, you didn’t have to bother with condoms. And you never got saddled with a wife and kids. Now condoms are mandatory and the way things are going, we’ll soon be forced to do our bit along with our straight brethren and ‘have one for the country’.
I don’t understand this mania for parenthood. If you’re gay – breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy life. Let’s face it, after years of unstinting unselfish effort and thousands of dollars, the kids will probably hate you anyway. And why clutter up the planet with yet more superfluous humans? There’s not exactly a shortage.
Do it if you must, but please stay away from me when I go on holiday. I live in a suburb which resembles a seabird colony, full of breeding pairs (to whom I am unfailingly charming) and their noisy brats, so I don’t want more of the same when I take off on vacation.
You want a great concept for horror movie? Forget Snakes on a Plane - try Kids on a Budget Airline.
Toddlers thunder up and down the aisles, pestering anyone they wish. You can’t do as you might on the ground and ‘accidentally’ trip them, before making a quick getaway - you don’t have a parachute.
Ignoring them doesn’t work either. Like cats, who always head for the one person in the room who loathes them, they will always track you down.
Convinced of their charm, they grab your armrest with their sticky little paws and look winsomely into your eyes.
Calling the cabin staff and informing them that an item of live cargo seems to have escaped the hold and should be returned there forthwith doesn’t work either. Believe me – I’ve tried. The cabin crew have locked themselves in the cockpit rather than face these little horrors any longer.
You say, “Go back to Mummy,” and the little moppet says, “Why?”
“Because if you don’t I’m going to gag you and stuff you in an overhead locker for the rest of the flight,” is not an acceptable answer. Especially when you reflect that in ten years time you might be stuck in a nursing home bed waiting for this little darling to wipe your arse.
You’d think that budget airlines, desperate for dollars, would take the economically rational course and drug everyone under 13 into oblivion before shelving them in the cargo hold. The adults could travel in relative peace and comfort, and the children wouldn’t get bored or whine about their ears hurting.
It’d be a great selling point. Drop your kids off at check-in and pick them up again from the baggage carousel. Plus the airline wouldn’t have to provide kids with seats, meals, or colouring books. Quick, someone call Richard Branson.
In the meantime, would all parents, gay and straight, please learn to manage their children so that they behave appropriately around those of us who have left the feral ape stage, been through the training, and graduated as fully-fledged human beings. Or else stay home. Thank you very much.
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