Chill Da Wren

Children. Hmm. I'm not great with kids. They make me uncomfortable and I never know what to say to them. Why this is the case, I don't know. Thinking about it, I never got on with kids when I was one so there's no reason why I should get on with them now. Then again, I often don't get on with grown-ups either. Fuck it: people, I basically have a problem with people. But children in particular are small and weird and I don't know what they're for.

Case in point: a couple I know, good friends, have a son who must be about three years-old (I can't be exact without sawing him in half and counting the rings). This little boy had never taken to me. Whenever I attempted to communicate with him he always gave me this slightly uneasy look as if I were some tramp who barks and rambles incoherently at you and just won't go away even though you have given him all your spare change. (To be fair, though, he's a wary little thing and looks at most people like that; it's not just me).

So, we're all at my mate's wedding in Glasgow and guess who I've been placed next to during the wedding breakfast - that's right, the little boy who looks at me as if I'm the biggest freak alive*. What to do, what to say? I sit there talking to my pals round the table, occasionally glancing in the kid's direction and smiling but he is too busy investigating a bottle of bubble solution and a bubble ring. He was having trouble getting the hang of blowing bubbles but eventually managed to blow some across the table in front of me. I cooed some googly baby noises and made a grab for the bubbles that passed before me. The little man seemed greatly amused by this. He was even more amused when his bubbles ended up floating on the head of my beer and amused still further to blow bubbles in my face when the starters arrived. Then his dad and I tried to catch the bubbles in our mouths which he thought was the funniest thing ever.

I was his pal after that and he no longer looks at me as if I might be a maniac who could kill him with an axe.

Oh Christ, this post is quite sweet. I do apologise. I don't know what's come over me. I'll try and find something to rage about next time.

* Don't even think it, motherfucker.