Friday 30 January 2009

Toddlerphobia

Tessa has just taken a break from a busy Savannah cider-guzzling holiday schedule to phone me from Howick. Reclining on a lawn chair,  cider in hand, she has harangued me about breeding. I have been informed that her black-ringleted little cherub can melt the stoniest of hearts, and make a broody breeder of a bullet-proof bachelor at 100 paces. I have one or two doubts.

Boiled or Fried?
I do like children, but I could never eat a whole one. Other than basted or floured, I find them of dubious worth. Kids ruin your figure, and leave your boobs looking like kippers. In my experience, they knock over beers, fistedly scrawl “FaR t” on the couch with your girlfriend’s Dior lipstick, and make you feel bad when you blurt out ‘fuck’.

If I had a ZA Rondt for every woman who’s said to me, “But you’d make such a good dad. You’re so good with children” I’d have enough money to build 10 planned parenthood clinics. Thing is, the little critters do seem to find me a cool fun guy, but I can never stand them for longer than the next nappy change. Sorry, but I’m just too selfish.

My Own Private Pregnaho
In the autumn of my thirties, the biological clocks are clanging louder than a 12-pound hammer on the inside of a slowly flooding diving bell. It seems the whole world is pregnant, or has a little IQ-sapper on each hip. It’s like Shaun of the Dead but with ponderous phalanxes of pregnant or fussy pram-toting women instead of marching zombie hordes. A previously thriving conversational ecosystem of everything between heaven and earth topics has been wiped out by “being pregnant” or “the face of a child…” GM crop platitudes that make me feel like an atheist at a church barbeque.  Can’t we deport all the pregnant woman to a US State that no one cares about, like say, Idaho? We could rename it “Pregnaho”. Oprah can be President for Life.

10 comments:

Tessa said...

Big lobola = one daughter. Adorable.

Miranda said...

NO! Please don't send me to Pregnaho! I beg of you!

Janelle said...

heh heh. you funny. lets SEND miranda to Pregnaho! HAH! x

timothymarcjones said...

Miranda,
I think Janelle's right. Have inserted a word counter on your blog that registers every time you use the word 'pregnant' at an unspecified threshold, Pregnaho or Pregnakloma it is.

karen said...

This post really made me laugh! Watch out, Miranda...

your varsity reminiscences are wonderful & bring back lots of memories of a smiliar time & place for me - especially the music! :-)

Jeannie said...

Shame Fush, I hadn't realised you were so woried about your boobs!

Laughing away here in the internet cafe - Pregnaho indeed :-)

timothymarcjones said...

Karen,
Glad you like the varsity blog. It takes me way back too.

More music coming up. Watch for a post called 'alternative night'.

Jeannie,
As I have man-tits, I'm very worried about my boobs.

Reya Mellicker said...

Suddenly I got a vision, of you in five years with your wonderful wife and a child.

Eating your words, you will be, at least in my vision.

I never had kids ... though I like them as much as any other form of human, I knew motherhood was not part of my destiny. You, though ... hmmmm ...

In my vision, you look so happy.

timothymarcjones said...

Hmmmm, maybe Reya. It's not on my agenda now, but who knows? I knew Zulu men in the Transkei who were still rolling out kids at 72!

Lori ann said...

haha so funny. poor Miranda, she can come to Pregnafornia and stay with me!
i think Reya's right, it does seem to work that way, the ones who protest the loudest;) sounds like you would be a lovely dad.

x lori