There are five of us in the house, not counting Killer Frank* the catfish, and there are only two, including Frank the catfish, who don’t look at me as though I’m some kind of idiot most of the time. And Danger’s only 6 months old so probably has the same sort of idea about these things as Frank.
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| perhaps I don’t help myself |
True, I can manage to look like an idiot but at three and five respectively, Fifi and the boy shouldn’t be giving me the scornful withering looks that they do. No, that sort of look should be the reserve of wifey.
I think at times I fall into that category of clever but stupid that really bright people often end up in. At least that’s what I tell myself. I know what a Higgs Boson is and have even successfully explained it to someone who didn’t but I completely failed to describe a desk to wifey that was up in the loft but had been in use for about 5 years prior to it’s loftification. Occasionally it seems like I’m on another planet.
The kids have obviously picked up on this, taking after their mother who is pretty sharp. I quite often get called to account when I’m not watching they play attentively enough as I’ve drifted off and my when explanations for important things don’t quite work, like how Spider-Man manages to stick to walls, I get a serious look which mixes annoyance and a slight smidgeon of pity.
There are several phrases that completely fail to work on me too. Like, “It’s over there on that shelf.” I might as well give up, I can’t contextualise where there is and which shelf it is so I end up looking at every shelf in the vague vicinity of there, however remote the chance of the thing in question being there. It’s so bad I often leave looking for things until after wifey has gone to bed.
I do often intentionally play the comedy figure with the kids though. I like seeing them laugh and each of them seems to have a really developed sense of humour. Unfortunately Fifi’s humour focuses mainly around the slapstick and mostly around aiming haymakers at my groin. There are often times I’m lying on the floor doubled over in agony listening to hysterical laughter. The boys humour at this moment is rather more scatological. Calling someone Mr PooPooHead is about the pinnacle of funny in his book.
Obviously I can do serious when the situation requires it but I often get the impression the rest of them are humouring me in my attempts not to come across as an entirely incompetent human being…
*the boy renamed my catfish Frank. No idea why, he just did it and was pretty adamant that was his name.