Children: High on Life

Children are miniature addicts, and their drug is simply 'Living'. Every day is an impossible, invincible high, peppered with occasional intermittent moments of tantrumous* lows. Some study somewhere done by someone** reckons that children laugh over three hundred times a day, whereas us gloomy adults only manage just under twenty.

I reckon a couple of kids let me borrow a laugh or two, today.

While doing the weekly shop this morning, I got a glimpse into someone else's life- the life of a parent of two little girls. They were about four and six years old- the oldest couldn't have been any older than seven. In any case, they were both at that stage of life where you have bundles of energy, a limitless imagination and where the world is your own personal playground.

The two girls were jumping around like grasshoppers and chattering non-stop, punctuating their animated conversation with plenty of sound effects. I glanced up at the dad, who was pushing the trolley, and had to stifle a sympathetic smile: he had bags under his reddened eyes, a slumping posture and a general Could-Have-Used-A-Few-Weeks'-Worth-Of-Sleep aura about him. Still, he'd automatically snap to attention if one of the bouncing girls was about to ricochet into the TV displays, or if one of them asked a genuine question (because sometimes children ask all sorts of things when it's clear they don't really care what then answer is- you'll answer them and they'll already be off like a rubber ball). So as exhausted parents of two young children go, he was pretty much as on the ball as you can get.

Just after he managed to deflect a potentially expensive bounce towards the electronics section, I heard him try to distract the girls by engaging them in proper conversation.

"Mummy said we need to get -x-, should we get it now? I think we should. Can you tell me which aisle you think it's down?"

There was a sudden, thoughtful silence. Then I heard one of the girls announce:

"I have decided that I want to be a feather."

And which much 'Wheeee!'-ing and 'Yaaaaaaay!'-ing the girls bounced off again.

Nice try Dad-Of-Two, but you just can't reason with these life addicts.

~Fin~

*When life hands you a situation that can't be summed up in one word... make a new one?

**Found on the internet and therefore completely irrefutable, of course...

Short Stories: A Bit of Schadenfreude

Today, I was on a set of descending escalators in a shopping centre. I heard the thundering of running footsteps behind me, and was very suddenly crashed into by some guy with a load of bags, who, apparently lacking any sense of personal space, decided not to back off and instead to stand literally pressed up against me. I turned to give him an icy stare whilst standing my ground, muscles coiled up like snakes about to strike if he turned out to be the sort of guy to try any funny stuff.

He didn't notice my glare though, because it turned out he wasn't paying attention to me at all- he was gazing back up the escalators. Suddenly he spun around (nearly knocking me over all over again), and darted up the escalator. I watched in an almost hypnotised state of amazement as he dashed upwards against the downwards movement of the staircase, at first only matching the speed and seemingly running in one spot, and then gradually succeeding at picking up speed. I had reached the ground by now, but I couldn't stop watching.

Just as he was almost at the top, tiring out fast and beginning to slow down again, he made one last almighty leap to the finish line- only to trip heavily, bags flying and limbs flailing, and he finished his race to the top by scrambling on all fours.

(I turned away very quickly to hide my laughter).

~Fin~