Competitive Weaning (State Premiers Award Winning Post)

So it turns out for some reason that I can't understand, I've been given an award for this nonsense which is obviously lovely and greatly appreciated, but the most important thing is, it probably saves my constructing of a difficult first paragraph. That's because nothing happened at all today that I could possibly talk about, so why not get an award! Incidentally, my set text in any instance like this, any instance where I need to learn how to handle triumph or disaster, High Flier by Alisa Camplin, references her first real award, the State Premiers award from John Cain and how proud she was to stand and get an award. The reason I read this book was because if I had to reference standing waiting to meet a state Premier, well, he never showed up, some "aide" turned up and gave me my citizenship certificate, and the old bloke next to me farted an absolute cracker and made me glad that I wasn't smoking. I've been trying to think of anything that happened today, except that my curly headed nemesis at Kmart was out and about again. I was perusing a book in her book section one day, and she's come out with "Ho ho ho, if you like a book that much, you should buy it!" to which my response was "You've just cost your company a sale!" - OK, my response was mostly to put the book down (which I was going to buy) and storm off, and she was sort of chasing me apologizing, but too late, sales pressure had been applied. I was strolling about listening to Daniella's Daze loud on my IPOD, oblivious to the fact I'd won an award by the way, and sort of grabbing people hoping they'd provide some narrative construct for my day, and then, just as DD started to kick into chorus #2, I saw a harried mother splitting up two battling kids, and there it was...the kid was drinking a lime spider! Fant...no...wait...I've had a better idea...just let me rock out a bit on the outro...



Fantastic. So let me state this, as a lesson in Scottish slang - a "wean" is slang for a child, as in "see what the weans daying", "that's a lovely looking wean" or "yer weans a minger" for children with unfortunate faces or "plooks". This lead to quite a traumatic day in your development when you are no longer the wean. Anyway, let me also say that one of the things that defines your life as a wean in Scotland is competition, competition from bullies, from other people from other religions, from family and friends...my Dad used to try and make me a lot more competitive than I am - he's incredibly competitive, and completely beyond all pride when it comes to celebrating his victories (he's not beyond doing aeroplanes around a traumatised child wondering how they just lost at electronic soccer). My Mum, she just loves revenge, she hates games, but she loves revenge (her family motto is "ye've got tae sleep sometimes son"). So my life as a wean has not been adverse to moments of competition. My Dad and my late cousin played me and my friend at two on two soccer on an Ayrshire beach once, and shot out to a tight and competitive 50-0 lead, at which point my Dad drove my cousin mad by saying perhaps he might give us a goal..."NO!" he screamed, they have to learn, and he was right...although my Dad didn't seem to appreciate the day I batted for three hours straight against him compiling a patient hundred while he acted as a one man fielder. One of my main memories of Scotland was seeing a junior soccer game in Ayr, where a bloke nearly snapped this blokes leg off with a tackle, and as this kid rolled around on the ground, his Dad charged onto the ground and squared up to the leg breaker, who calmly and somewhat serial killerishly said "Oh, is it family night at the hospital tonight?" - ah, Scotland, you invented the stamp, the tyre, and the notion of casual violence based on the notion that all strangers are essentially out to get you...fantastic...

I always forget when I go back to Scotland what it's like there, but it doesn't take long to get re-accquainted. Early this year, I went to a golf club (just like the wedding I went to, nothing says class like plus fours and wedges) to attend a party for my aunty and uncles 50th wedding anniversary (I think in Scotland that's not gold, but Irn Bru). My aunty and uncle had two kids, who fight all the time. They have a son with an inflated sense of his own self importance (I once played him at ten pin bowling, and when he won with a 9 on his last bowl, he actually said "Ye see, when ye play me yer never safe!" to which I said "Well...dickhead...I won a Crunchie on the skill tester! So Nuh!") and a daughter who it's fair to say they don't like as much as the son. In fact, when the daughter was younger, they made her do the sons paper round when he broke his foot, and were trying to get her to give him the money for it. She's quite headstrong, and idolises my mother and her theories on people having to take a turn in their bed at some moment...me, I had jet lag, and a terrible stomach ache, and being loaded up on Tennents lager didn't help. So trying to sketch the details of the evening, I find really difficult. Plus, my frames of references in the UK are all off - I keep going to say "So, the Veronicas, what's all that about?" and keep having to change it to Girls Aloud. As I stumbled and bumbled through several awkward and slightly dated popular culture references, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the daughter was banging a spoon off a glass, and was ushering (it would have been super awesome if she had a torch and a jac...sorry, you can take the award back) her kids to the podium. As the son was glowering wildly, the daughters kids got up and read cute self penned poems, that even though I was drunk and now full of Kiev based chicken, were actually pretty good. The significant thing about this is, my uncle is an amazingly grumpy old bastard, in fact he makes Andy Murray look like a laugh riot, and even he was smiling at the amusing references to his foibles set in iambic pentameter. I was going to keep the poetry slam going by getting up and telling everyone assembled about that crazy woman from Nantucket (man, her and her adventures) but instead, I was bailed up by my cousin, some bendy straws, cocktails with rude names and her theories about how all men are bastards...and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the son and his wife engaging in massive and somewhat heated discussion and I thought...no one here knows who Josh Fraser is, I'm dying here...actually, I thought, gosh, this is going to be interesting...

As it turns out, what happened was that the son was bitterly, bitterly furious because his own two kids, two daughters, hadn't been informed that they'd have to do what in Scotland is referred to as "a turn", and obviously with the daughters kids doing their turn, he looked a bit slack in the parenting department. Me, I didn't really care, I was too busy being sick in the toilet and covering it with some "oh, sorry, was I away for 1/2 an hour? I was totally hitting on the barmaid" story that no one was buying. I don't think one of the sons kids had any special talent except for introducing her boyfriend, Miley Cyrus style since she was like 14, as "her special partner" (my other cousins boyfriend said "fucks sake, he must get in a box and let her saw in half, special partner, fucks that!"). However, there was light at the end of this terrible parenting tunnel - the songs other kid, a daughter called Daniella was called over in a daze (see, it all ties in! Daniella's Daze? No...what do you mean you want the award back!) and rather stridently told that she had to get up and do something special for granny and grandad. And what could be more special than a golden wedding saxophone recital? Yes, in the spirit of competition, they made this poor kid get up and play her saxophone to entertain the troops. Sadly, she may have exaggerated her abilities on the sax, or been using saxophone lessons the same way I used job interviews in 1999 (an excuse to go and see someone to get a special mummy and daddy hug). Now, fair play to the kid, she had a crack, even though she was clearly mortified in front of her own "special partner", and even though it wasn't smooth, she battled her way through an acceptable version of "Baker Street". We applauded and went to go back to our bendy straw drinks, at which point the son and his wife have leapt up like salmon out of their seats and screamed for an encore like they had just seen Miley herself sing live. The kid was shaking her head frantically, but the son was so proud, he was preening in front of the daughter, showing up to the world how wonderful his offspring were, how much of a better parent he was to his own parents...Daniella still frantically shaking her head...and broken down, sighing, beaten, she steeled herself, took one for the team...and did Baker Street again...having not progressed beyond page 2 of the how to play the saxophone in 12 easy steps book, it was her entire range on display. And as her parents slunk into their chairs, and the daughter beamed, the son bravely tried to start a clap...

Me? I was trying to ignore the hubbub, slink into my chair, and tell my fascinating Lavinia Nixon anecdote...to the barmaid...she thought it was my sister...