Naive Psychologist

‘Hey, they look like the sunrise.’

And out of the mouth of a five year old boy, it’s not such a naff description. Sunrise or not, they’re glorious.

Based on the morning’s experience of trying to be a good mother of children home on holidays and playing firstly snakes and ladders and then trouble, it can be stated with absolute surety that monopoly will not ever, never, ever, never be a feature of this family’s family activities.

‘The floor’s very grubby, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, but I do like being able to see the dust dance again.’

When I look at the small pile of things I have bought myself this week – a pencil, a pen, a notebook, a brooch and a cardigan – I’m surprised to see that they are all one colour.

Red.

It is not a colour which has ever been mine.

The Lavender Lady at intensive care has silver hair done in large waves too big to be curls. Her badge is purple and gold and her tissue box is blue.

She says and you are his daughter with a question mark, but and you are his son with something more of a full stop.

The man down the street with the thin alsation dog has a sign on his door. It is an A4 sheet in a plastic sleeve and it is written in arial bold.

In the two years we have lived here, I have never seen anyone open the gate or walk down the path or knock on the wire door.

Chanel Ten, Big Brother, Gretel and those two guys would have a lot more credibility, and the story would be fuller had there been some extra questions. Just a few for starters:

So, do you think you have a better understanding of why those dratted rules might have been developed in the first place?
Oh, and do you (Gretel, scriptwriters and those removed from the house) see no inconsistency between throwing yourself into Big Brother and then banging on about how poorly you’ve been treated by an evil media that takes a story and runs with it?

Youse would have done well to be watching Boston Legal last night.

And another point of interest: hold up a sign saying free the refugees and incur the wrath of Gretel and even Rove; carry on in a manner such as this and let the waves of sympathy wash over you.

‘These lights are really starting to give me the shits.’

‘It’s called mood lighting for a reason.’

They went down to the back fence to practice the words they weren’t supposed to say.

Mummy’s poo-poo.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Shut the fu*k-ing door.

Neighbour to youngest child: where’s your mum?

Youngest child to neighbour: she’s inside, because she’s a wife.