The Christmas Hat

It really looks like it’s gonna be one of those weeks. Okay, it’s true. I’d soiled myself. But gimme a break. First off, I’m four years old. Second, Father thought it would be a good idea to give me a sandwich on the train, and it was only thirty minutes since lunch. Easy mate. I don’t need to eat every other minute. I’m not 6 months anymore. Third, I was already in a fragile mood after that gust of wind almost toppled me as we stepped down onto the pavement from the steps leading down from the station. Fourth, that magpie that swooped down at me was bloody scary. To you, it’d be like a huge black and white eagle swooping down on ya. Mother thinks that hat, (you know, the stripy knitted one with the silver-bell attached to the apex?) looks cute on me at Christmastime. And apparently the magpies find it irresistible. Who knew?

And clearly it ain’t my fault magpies are attracted to shiny things. Bloody magpies. I tell ya. And Father, who was walking me across the park at the time, (well, for ‘walking me,’ read, ‘arguing with his boss on his cell about a sales order, and occasionally taking a couple steps' - I was going faster than him despite the fact the grass was up to my knees,) just stands me up and shoves that wretched hat back on me again! Are you trying to make me a target to every magpie in the park or what? Of course I take the bloody thing off again.

After an interminable wait while father finishes his conversation, he eventually reaches down to take my hand, (gee, don’t pull my arm out of it’s socket feller!) and walks us back to the train station. I love the train. It’s so fast and smooth, and the tunnels are awesome! So cool. Eventually we get back home. Nice dinner, no complaints there. Mother’s roast potatoes, usually pretty sub-standard, were actually pretty crisp today.

So, yeah, my evening looked like it was going to perk me up after that scare in the park. And then, as she’s putting me in bed, I get attitude about soiling my daks. As I said, gimme a break! It’s not like I shat the bed. And it was the bloody magpie’s fault anyway.

Mother drove us to kindergarten the next morning. The car stopped at a red light by the park, and I swear I saw those birds giving me the stink-eye from their perches. We’ve parked outside the kindergarten, and are getting out when Mother notices another of those stupid bell-hats. This one’s on my annoying buddy Martha. She used to be cool, but these days she’s always grabbing my toys, and must have a sinus cavity half the size of her head judging from how snotty her nose always is. Anyway, Mother realises that I’m not wearing mine. She looks through the whole car in an increasingly snotty mood (sorry, I’m thinking about snot now.) Eventually she gives up and walks me in rather roughly – I’m going to develop arm muscles like Mr Universe judging from how my parents just love to drag me along by that arm.

So we’re in. Mother’s gasbagging with a couple of the other parents. And… beautiful. Sigh. That little shit Toby has already gotten his germ-infested mitts all over my favourite jigsaw. Looks like my one-of-those-weeks thing is still a thing.

Well, there’s one high point. Miss Wren, one of the Teacher’s College students getting some work experience dealing with us all, she bends over to pick up Toby when he was crying, (Duane hit him pretty hard with the corner of a book, though I wanna believe it was more an accident than deliberate malice,) well he wriggled while she was bent over, and she farted quite loudly. It got Toby to stop crying – he went into a laughing fit instead. Like I said, he’s a nasty piece of work. Give the lady a break mate. News flash. Everyone farts, geesh. But no, the high point of the afternoon was a little later just as we were all sat down in a circle ready for storytime. Toby was late getting to the circle because he’d lost his blankie and he was looking for it. Okay, I understand that. Blankies are important. Anyway, so we're all turning around to tell him to hurry up when he bends over to grab the corner of his blankie, sticking out from under one of the cushions, and he really lets one rip. And the all the kids burst into laughter. Poetic justice I tells ya. Beautiful. I had to control my mirth or it would’ve been soiled daks two days in a row. ROFL.

We’re home, it’s dinnertime. And Father’s eyeing up the brussel sprouts almost as greedily as those corvids were eyeing up my hat yesterday. Mother chops one up, and decides I’m still young enough to enjoy the here’s-the-train-going-into-the-tunnel game. So yeah, nah. I actually can get on board with that game, but I’m not bloody well cooperating if it means I have to swallow brussel sprouts! Give mine to that lunatic I think, indicating Father with an irritated glance.

After it became obvious I was not going to cooperate with the brussel sprouts, my parents forced me to stay at the table for what seemed like forever, while they talked. I was alarmed to hear Mother grilling Father on the location of the infamous hat. It had gone missing, and I was like, hey, everyone wins! But apparently not. Sigh. Why can’t she just drop it? I don’t know, maybe she was channelling me, but just then she suggested to Father that maybe I’d dropped it back at the park the other day? He’s like, sure, he did, but I picked it up again. Of course, he’d been distracted by that sales call, and hadn’t noticed I’d dropped it again.

When Father reluctantly went back to the park the next day to search for it, he found it. Well. Bits of it… The grass had been mown since then, and clearly the mower guy was earning his ten bucks an hour when he rode right over it. All we found were a couple of grass-stained tiny cut-up pieces. I was like, let it go feller, it’s just a hat. But the sneaky bastard stopped at the store on the way home and bought another one. Sigh. Like I said, looks like it’s just gonna be one of those weeks.

Okay, it’s true. I shat the bed. But gimme a break. First off, I’m a magpie. Second, that worm Mother fed me a little earlier just went right through me. Third, I’m only just fledged. And fourth, the wind blew up just at that moment, and that’s when we discovered that that unusual bit of metal attached to that soft bit of fabric we all like on the side wall of the nest? It’s actually a bell. Who knew? Literally scared the crap outta me.