PG Tips

True story – a year seven pupil finished school for the day and trotted off back home. Only upon arriving at her front door did she realise she didn’t have her keys and began to panic. When Mum returned from work to find her child snivelling and pouting outside she was furious and contacted the school demanding that something be done as clearly there was a thief at large. The school assured her that this probably wasn’t the case, as thieves gravitated more towards pinching things of monetary value (phones/money/gold teeth) and that the keys would probably turn up.

The next day Mum phoned up the school again – this time even more enraged. The keys had been found, but this wasn’t the issue anymore. Mum wanted to know how we were going to deal with the bully who, apparently, must have followed her child home from school, snuck into the house, taken the keys which they had previously stolen and placed them under a seat cushion before making good her escape. For what reason? Just to wind her child up. Hmm…

Delusional parents are under the spotlight this week – and believe me, there’s a lot of them. These imbeciles don’t seem to understand that children are liars. Not all of them, I’ll admit, but a surprising number don’t seem at all fazed by the act of lying straight to your face. Maybe I’m just jealous because whenever I try to tell a little untruth I start tripping over words, glancing around, getting a bead on, blushing crimson and occasionally spasming with apologetic gestures. The children‘s version, however, is far more impressive. Stare straight into the eyes and declare, with devastatingly audacious commitment, that you don’t know what they’re talking about. Devious little shits.

It’s very easy to see where some of these children get their appalling manners from when you meet the gorillas they were farted out of. Sometimes you don’t have to even meet them – just a quick conversation on the phone is enough to assure you of their cretinous credentials. Calling a mother up a couple of years ago, I was greeted by the unmistakable sound of a belch on the other end of the phone. An actual burp, mind you, complete with a contented gasp of relief immediately afterwards. How is it possible for me to talk to this woman now when we both know she’s a filthy disgrace? Easy – she doesn’t think she’s a filthy disgrace. See? It’s simple; if you’re a filthy disgrace.

After nearly deafening me with her smelly mouth wind, she had another outburst prepared once she realised who it was. ‘Oh, you’re the one who’s always picking on him. That’s what he tells me when he gets in.’ Just so you know, this child had been excluded over 30 times in the two years he’d been at the school (ah, inclusion – watch it working live in the school of your choice) never did any work in class (unless you call writing Mr Mills-based obscenities on the table work – I, frankly, do not) and had about as much right to be in the classroom as bin Laden at a how to avoid capture for over ten years and not get conveniently shot in the face at the arse end of that time seminar. It’s very simple really – just take the phrase ‘you’re always picking on meeeeeee’ from the classroom, change it very slightly to, ‘you’re always picking on hiiiiiiiiimmmm’ and move it to the home (or lair) and you’ve got it.

The delusional parent does not know common sense. He/she stares the obvious truth in the face and concocts an alternate reality where the little angels are not culpable for their behaviour. Just like when I was 14 and wanted to get drunk on anything I could find in the house while my parents were out, chugged down red wine and cooking ale like the plane was going down, coloured the bathroom a stainy shade of chunky pink, fell asleep in all my clothes and was approached in bed the next day by a sympathetic mother who assured me, as I squinted her into a puzzled focus, that I must have just eaten a lot of red grapes the night before.

This seems harmless enough, but be warned, sometimes the fabricated realities can be extremely bizarre. Take the case of the South London Two. This concerns the mother of a child who has since withdrawn them from school because of the dark sciences taking place there. Yes, come closer, if you dare, and heed my warning because schools are not the places you think they are. This mother became suspicious when her child, upon reaching puberty, became far more listless and disaffected. No longer would the boy hold her hand in public or ask for a story at night, preferring instead to listen to loud ungodly music and spend time alone in their room with the door locked. The truth was obvious (and actually cited as the sole reason for the pupil’s removal from school in all reality). The child had been cloned at school and they were sending the evil boy home at night while keeping her good son for themselves for… oh, I don’t fucking know. Make it up for yourselves – she did.

All true, all terrifying. If this is what we can rely on from parents these days, all hope is lost. Although I should state for the record that some parents are great – really supportive and completely sane – but that doesn’t make for good reading, does it? I know what you want and it’s baffling and unpleasant – you ask, you get.

Thanks very much for… oh, that’s right, no-one’s left a comment for over a month now. If anyone fancies joining in, just click on comments and inevitably write something about my hair. Frankly, I’ll take anything these days. Ciao, bella.