Parklife - Sunday at the Sliding Board

Yeah it's been a while since i've delved into the horrors known as Parklife, or having to take Kid A and Kid B to the park so they can run and play and burn off all that energy that you have when you are young and the world at large is the coolest fucking place, where the mere sight of a strange bugs can provide hours of entertainment... see i live on a street with a park and i'm there alot, practically every day in the summer but lately the weekends have become a fucking nightmare, the local yinzers have started up a memorial street hockey league for one of the dead cops, which is all well and good and shit except these nonces don't even use skates, they do it junior high gym class style and run around chasing a plastic ball and of course you'd think they were playing for Lord Stanley's cup itself they way they fight and scream fuck and cocksucker and all kinds of things a sponge brained almost 4 year old will remember and regurgitate at the most inopportune times, of course much of this noise has chased a lot of the normal park users away on the weekends but on Sunday's they let the kids play so while one kid is playing hockey the rest of the family, i.e. kids not playing hockey run unsupervised through the park which leads us to...

Last week Kid A wanted to take his soccer ball, i told him it was crowded but he wanted to kick it about so i said okay and he was happy and i was happy that he wanted to play so we walked into the nightmare, immediately on arrival some little boy comes up and wants to play, now i'm pushing Kid B on the baby swings and watching as the little boy, who we'll call Punk Brat, keeps picking up the ball and walking to about 4 feet from Kid A and trying to chuck it at his head as hard as he can, i keep telling Punk Brat not to do it and he keeps watching me and i finally tell him that if he keeps it up he can fuck off back to wherever he came from (maybe not my exact words of course) until finally he gets off his shot which Kid A sees coming and the ball glances off his head, Kid A laughs and i tell Punk Brat to beat it...

Now I'm not gonna sit here and trumpet about how smart my kid is cuz that shit gets old and we all think we have the next Einstein or Mozart or Picasso, but what i like about Kid A is his cunning, which at times scares me but at times i beam with pride at his patience and planning, see about a half hour goes by and i'm playing with Kid B on the kiddie jungle gym while watching Kid A on the big jungle gym maybe 50 feet away, he's playing and i'm thinking nothing of it and i go back to Kid B when i see Kid A come trotting over and he starts playing and then of course i see Punk Brat and Punk Brat's dad walking my way, i look down at Kid A who looks up at me and ask, you do something to him? and Kid A just kind of smiles and shrugs...

Now most weekends being full time dad i don't shave and barely shower and usually get out one night for a few beers and such so i'm standing there in my cut off shorts with a stained t-shirt courtesy of the boyos, my beat up Van's and a baseball hat, Punk Brat's dad who we'll call Diamond Douchebag is what i would call Nouveau Riche, stud in ear, expensive jeans with his multi-striped maroon button down tucked in, his keys clipped to the back of his jeans and fancy loafers, his cop shades are perched on his head which has enough fucking L. A. Looks hair gel in it as to not even dent his coif, he's the kind of classless douche who thinks he has class cuz he has some dosh, the kind of guy who walks into a tapas restaurant and gets pissed cuz he can't get a hamburger and the menu's in Spanish, he'd make some smarmy remark like, "god-damn Mexicans are ruining our country" and then order a fucking Coors Light, an almost textbook example of everything i despise...

Diamond Douchebag looks at Punk Brat and says, tell him what happened, now Punk Brat sniffles and says that Kid A put his foot on his chest and sent him sailing down the sliding board and let me tell you it was all i could do to stifle a smile, of course this being Parklife i couldn't really high five Kid A, so i asked if this was true and he said yeah dad and i explained to him the dangers of shoving kids down sliding boards even if they are Punk Brats who just a bit ago were trying to bean you in the head with a soccer ball from 4 feet away, i made sure he didn't kick him and asked to explain and he said he just put his foot on him and sent him down, i told him to say sorry and he did and Diamond Douchebag asked Punk Brat if he accepted and he did and then Diamond said give him a hug, to which i said to Kid A, shake his hand, Diamond shot me a look and for a brief second i thought it was gonna be my lucky day until i think Diamond realized i was a good 7 or 8 inches taller than him...

Of course it was all i could do to hold my tongue and explain why it happened so as we left the park i asked Kid A why he did it, he said Punk Brat wasn't very nice, i stopped and told him to look at me and Kid A was all ears as i told him that it wasn't cool to push kids down the sliding board and it wasn't cool to kick them and asked him if he understood, he said yes and then i said Punk Brat thought it was funny when he was trying to bean you in the noggin but when you retaliated what happened? Kid A said he told on me, i said right, that's what you call a punk, he can dish it out but he can't take it, you'll meet people like him your whole life and if he's here next week i want you to tell him he's a punk and that you don't play with punks, Kid A stood looking very serious and said, Ok Dad and then i smiled and he smiled and he gave me a hug and we walked home. Kid A will be 4 in July. I might have to write a book on parenting.