Hostage Negotiation With A Baby

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you may remember that several months ago I wrote about accidentally cracking the screen on my daughters ‘Google Pad’.

Clumsy Fat Idiot Breaks Tablet PC And Daughter’s Heart

She was rightly furious at me…..and, I was devastated (not so much for upsetting my beloved daughter….I was more upset that I just wasted £200 on a tablet PC that we’d only had for 3 months!).

Anyway….in the end, we managed to make a claim on the household insurance….and, after paying £100 excess…..we got her a new pad.

The rules for ownership of the new pad were, 1. It must ALWAYS be kept in the protective padded cover, and 2. It must ALWAYS be kept out of the reach of the baby!

Of course, nobody actually follows these rules…..and, the pad remains totally unprotected, and, usually left plugged in, in places that it shouldn’t be.

In addition, our Bridie loves the Google pad…..she is fascinated by the moving images, and she adores it when we switch the web cam on, and she can see herself.

Anyway…..yesterday, Edie and I were in the kitchen eating our lunch, and Elle was eating her lunch in the living room, with Bridie balanced on her knee.

Elle put Bridie down on the floor, and nipped into the kitchen to get a drink.

As she entered the kitchen, I turned around to talk to Elle…..and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bridie waving the Google pad in the air.
The pad was on the footstool charging up…..it was still plugged in…..so, she was tugging at the power cable to release it from its tether!

“Oh my God….Bridie’s got the pad“, I said nervously.

And, this is when the ‘negotiations‘ started……..it was like trying to tell a cornered bank robber to ‘put the gun down‘, and ‘back away from the hostage‘.

My heart was palpitating……but, I think that may be due to the blood trying to force it’s way past my furred up arteries.

I slowly got up from my chair, and moved towards Bridie…..

But, as I moved towards her…she moved towards me….thus, pulling the power cable tighter, and tighter, and tighter.

I stopped in my tracks….she stopped in hers……it was a face off.

“Bridie…..put the pad down on the floor, bab”

I kept my vocal tone low and spoke at a consistent pace……I tried to pretend that I wasn’t anxious….but, I was.

She didn’t move…..

“Bridie…..can you put the pad down? Copy daddy……”

I acted out the sequence of actions…..showing her what I needed her to do.

Bridie just stood there…..staring at me…..with the Google pad raised high above her head…..she looked like she was going to smash it on the floor.

I made the decision to switch to offering positive comments in order to encourage her to place the pad on the floor.

“Good girl Bridie…..nice and soft…..gentle….ahhhhhh…..nice and soft”

Again, this failed to work…..Bridie just looked confused…..the power cable was now pulled so tight, that you could hear the ‘twang’ as the tension increased.

She looked at me…….I looked at her…….we weighed up our options.

And, then it happened…..she’d had enough….her patience had worn thin…..her itchy trigger finger had got the better of her…….the negotiations were over……..

SMASH!

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo“, I yelled.

Bridie had thrown the Google pad down onto the hard floor……

“Jeeeeeeeesus Christ“, I shouted.

Bridie looked pleased with herself….and toddled off to play with some shards of broken glass that we’d left out for her.

Fortunately, the pad wasn’t broken…..it HAD come apart slightly in the top corner….but, I soon snapped it back together.

“Which bloody idiot left the pad charging up on the footstool?”, I said, as I stared angrily at my family.

“You did!”, said Elle……”Yeah Dad, it was you…..“, said Edie.

*There was a short pause as I contemplated my witty reply.

“Yeah…..well…..you two are smelly tramps…..so there!”

I was given 38 minutes of ‘time out‘ for being inconsiderate and unnecessarily rude to my family….

The Shuffle Button – World’s Greatest Invention?

Sometimes, having a dog can be a pain in the arse.
However, our dog (Maisy) is another level of arse pain…like piles…only worse…and dog shaped.
She eats her own shit, urinates when people stroke her, tears up bin bags, sniffs crotches of total strangers and generally stinks like a baked turd covered in burnt hair.

Having said that, she’s a gentle, loving soul and taking her for a walk is a much needed 45 minutes of ‘head space’ away from work and the kids.
Whilst walking her this afternoon, the shuffle function provided me with an almost perfect playlist making an arduous task much more enjoyable.
Technology has come a very long way since my first personal cassette recorder back in 1985, so here’s a breakdown of 27 years of my life as seen through the ownership of personal audio equipment……

Age: 10 years old
Personal Listening Device: Saisho Personal Cassette Player (Yeah, thanks Mom and Dad….A Dixons special!).
Style: Clear plastic front panel, cream back, brown (yes, brown) buttons including fast forward, play and stop. (In order to listen again to “Ain’t no stoppin’ us” by Ollie & Jerry (Breakdance The Movie Soundtrack) you had to take the cassette out, flip it over, hit fast forward and wait the required length of time for the tape to rewind). Also came with giant earphones with orange sponge covers and a BELT CLIP!
Favourite Music: Breakdance music (Afrika Bambaataa, Curtis Blow, Melle Mel) and Pop (Michael Jackson and Prince).
Fashion: All clothes purchased via Grattan catalogue by mom. Bouffant hair.

*I should add that between the ages of 10 and 15 I owned a ‘Radio Hat’. This was a Trucker Style Baseball cap with a small radio tucked inside a pocket on the right hand side (with an aerial that you had to pull up to get a signal) and earphones that were incorporated into the peak. It was all black material and was purchased from Virgin Megastore. It also said ‘Virgin’ on the front which is exactly what I stayed for a long time as I looked like a massive bell-end.

Age: 15 years old
Personal Listening Device: Sharp Personal Radio/Cassette Player
Style: FUCKING HUGE. Easily as big as a house brick and had to be carried around using a strap like a satchel. Red and Black colour (Late 80’s/Early 90’s style – same as the wallpaper in my teenage bedroom). Incorporated an FM Radio (when tuned in to Radio 1 FM a bright red LED shone like the middle of a nuclear reactor). Upgrade from Saisho unit as this one had a rewind as well as fast forward meaning less fucking about with tapes. Earphones were smaller and flatter and most importantly…..NOT ORANGE!
Favourite Music: I had two lives when I was 15 (School Life – Into Public Enemy, De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers, Stone Roses, Happy Monday’s, Inspiral Carpets) and (Am Dram ‘Glee’ Life – Musicals, Harry Connick Jr, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole).
Fashion: DREADFUL! I didn’t know what the fuck I was into so i’ll offer up two of my outfits. (School Life – Troop Trainers (Mock patent leather toe section, snake skin side panel, giant laces, stupid air bubble), giant 25″ bottom jeans from Kensington Freak, Lilac hoodie with AZTEC print, PVC Africa medallion, beanie hat). Fashion wise, I was caught between being into hip hop, baggy pop, jazz and incredibly camp theatrical scores…..bad news). (Theatre Life – Huge high waisted trousers, bolero shirt, pointy shoes, stinking of Kouros….a complete anti-pussy zone).

Age: 20 years old
Personal Listening Device: Sony Clamshell Personal CD Player
Style: My 1st portable CD player. Had 30 seconds of anti-shock which was supposed to help with skipping CD’s (load of shit). Came with a cassette style adaptor so CD’s could be listened to in the car through existing audio system! Genius!
Favourite Music: Acid Jazz (Anything on Talkin’ Loud label – Omar, Young Disciples, Galliano, D’Influence) and Trip Hop (Massive Attack and Portishead) and any Hip Hop as advised by my surrogate big brothers: Eliot, Gaz, Steve and Lewis (Wu Tang, Redman, Jeru, Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill etc….)
Fashion: At this point, I was definitely certain I was part black. I dressed like a fat Ali G…..

Age: 25 years old
Personal Listening Device: Sony Mini-Disc Player
Style: Somewhere between the personal CD player and the MP3. Having the ability to make your own personal discs meant that compilations could be crafted like a true nerdy music ponce. Tiny, silver, very cool…..
Favourite Music: Unfortunately, Mini-Disc technology didn’t take off as the recorded media available was pretty much limited to artists on the Sony Label. Therefore, you were stuck listening to the same albums over and over. (I had: Blur – 13, Super Furry Animals – Radiator, Jamiroquai – Synkronised…..amongst others).
Fashion: Turned into a massive ‘labels’ ponce. My clothes were dreadful….as was my life at the time!

Age: 30 years old
Personal Listening Device: Apple i-Pod Shuffle
Style: Stored up to 125 tracks, size of a packet of chewing gum, worn round the neck on a lanyard, SHUFFLED ALL TRACKS IN A RANDOM SEQUENCE! Fucking AWESOME…….
Favourite Music: Bjork, Doves, Beck, Air and everything gone beforehand.
Fashion: First child born…my trousers hit the comfort zone….t-shirts moving from XL to XXL.

Age: 35 years old to date
Personal Listening Device: Apple i-Pod Classic (160GB)
Style: The Rolls Royce of portable audio. Classic design, easy to use, ability to listen to all the music i’ve loved for the last 30+ years, watch movies and delve into the world of podcasts (I recommend ‘The Smartest Man In The World’).
Favourite Music: 30 years of collected memories.
Fashion: Fat fuck clothes, anything that fits, jeans from Tesco, permanent frown.

Times have changed.
Technology has changed.
Music has changed.
Fashion has changed.
My waistline has changed.

My brain is still 15 years old……