Competitive parentage

I left off work in good time tonight, and it’s my turn to cook, but I couldn’t be arsed to, so I brought a load of stuff home from the supermarket and we went out for a walk and a picnic. Philippa had been stuck in all day and fancied some air, and it’s been lovely and bright, and we don’t know how many more of these late Summer evenings we’ll have that actually feel like late Summer, so we decided to take advantage of it while we have it.

There’s a nice little park that we only found recently, despite it being only 5 minutes’ drive away. You’d have thought we’d have stumbled upon it months ago by accident, it’s so close, but no. It was put in by the parish council with a grant from the National Lottery, apparently, and is dedicated to someone I’ve never heard of. I don’t know who ‘Gerald Simpkins’ is or was, but it’s quite a small park, so I doubt he ever did anything important.

There was an overweight guy there playing football with his son, whom I would estimate to be 6 years old. When I say ‘playing football with’ I mean ‘making him pretend to be a goalkeeper while lobbing shots over his head.’

I was eating some seedless black grapes (currently on offer in the store fruit and veg aisle for £1) when I heard him shout “PENALTY SHOOT-OUT!” I looked up to him placing the ball on the penalty spot while his bewildered offspring stood forlorn on the goal-line. I don’t know whether dad has been watching too much Premier League coverage and got carried away, but he started his run-up about 30 feet away from the ball, thundered towards it like a weird greyhound/bull hybrid set loose from the stalls at Pamplona racetrack, and belted the ball as hard as his chubby ankles would allow. It struck his confused, unmoving son just below the knee on his standing leg. The poor lad went down like a sack of shit dropped form an aeroplane, while dad’s only concern was running in to score from the rebound.

Men are twats.

Not me, obviously, but the rest of them.

RC 3-10-19

2015 BST