On Passing
[Monday, March 26]
Over the last weekend, two deaths came to my knowledge, both due to cancer. One was of a 3-year-old kid, succumbing to some form of cancer that tends to strike infants; one was a 67-year-old man, succumbing to skin cancer. Both were Christians. I found out about both through SMS. Both were prayed for, but both, obviously, died. I was one degree apart from each, connected to the child through the Gorilla and to the man through one of the teachers from RBS. I attended neither's funeral or wake, though I hope both went well...
What I'm trying to say here is that all deaths seem to be very much the same. The manner in which they occur vary slightly, but in all cases the result is identical: a hunk of meat... Well, people have been dying for thousands of years in all sorts of ways, and I expect fully to follow in the tradition. Except I don't think my own will be too conventional... well, if I must be remembered then I might as well be remembered for having a most flamboyant funeral. At least then I'll have attended one party I'll really have enjoyed... hahaha. Morbid humour does not become me.
Death is a most interesting topic, universal as it is. Everybody is interested in it, mostly as a curiousity they hope will never happen to them... that, I guess, explains all the anti-aging, life-prolonging treatments and drugs and whatnot that pervade the modern medical landscape. I for one don't plan to ever take one of those: right now I don't think I'm likely ever to complain about my life having been too short. If anything, if I should be so fortunate as to be able to know when to expect my death, I would spend my last few days running around and jumping in glee. (If, of course, I were allowed to. Quite likely I'll be bedridden and unconscious by then, but oh well.)
Anyway... I was chatting last night on MSN with the Drummer (whom I met in RBS) about all this. Death and such... and you know, it really got me thinking about my own impending death.
Well, maybe "impending" sounds like it's coming too soon. How about "approaching" or "coming" or "inevitable"? But in any case death will come for me. Either that or the Rapture, and somehow I'm not sure which one will be more comfortable. In heaven I plan for my mansion to be distinguishable by the sheer amount of sofas and soft cushions scattered about it. Naturally, it won't be at all orderly, but then the point of comfort is to not be tidy. Comfort, in my opinion, involves sprawling about in undignified positions, surrounded by all manner of odd or homely objects in the most accidental of postures. Maybe I'll even ask to be buried in a sitting position so my poor old bones don't get cramped. But I digress...
We were discussing the services at first, I remember. Then from there we got on to discussing how services usually go--I have little experience there, having attended very few funerals. The first funeral I ever attended--my great-grandmother, I think, when I was about 4 or 5-- left me with an impression that funerals are when you go see people put a box in the ground, cry, and then hand out boxes of chrysanthemum tea. The second funeral I eve attended--I don't remember who it might have been--destroyed that impression because they didn't serve out anything to drink, and left me with the idea that funerals are thirsty places to be. And wakes aren't much more enjoyable when you don't know whoever it is died and everybody else seems to be sniffling and in no mood to make small talk.
And so I've decided that my wake and my funeral are not going to be places where people sniffle and avoid making small talk. Heck, death is a good thing! Not very enjoyable for those left behind, of course, but I don't plan for the last thing I can affect on this earth to be a sad affair. I don't do sad affairs-- the world is depressing enough as it is, we need more real happiness, even if it is rather temporary. So I want my wake to be a party. Lots of nice music, my favourite anime OSTs, karaoke lounges, maybe confetti and paper streamers and those little whistles that shoot out paper rolls when you blow 'em. I want a live band playing happy songs and a dance floor. I want an all-you-can-eat buffet table and nothing on that table that might suggest grief. The dress code will be anything but black or white--we want colour, people! Splashes of red and blue and green liberally strewn about the place, maybe with those huge soft cushions on the floor for anybody whose feet get sore. And anybody who wants to stay sober--for 'em, I think I'll prepare Guy Fawkes masks, stovepipe hats, and those huge black ankle-length cloaks that fasten at the neck. So sue me, I like the V-for-Vendetta wardrobe. Then they can swoop around looking like Professor Snape and add to the general merriment.
Oh, of course sooner or later there's got to be some sad bits. It's only natural for people to want to cry at this sort of function; it's traditional, after all, to go through boxes of tissue paper at such things. Well, maybe hopefully somebody will miss me or something, who knows? But... gah, I don't know. I simply don't cope well with massive overflows of emotion. So I hope nobody cries or any such thing. Well, I can't prevent it... but I can make sure the drinks are spiked with antidepressants and there's laughing gas being pumped into the airconditioning... oh, yeah, I'm rambling off again. But it's pretty much a given that no matter what instructions I leave in my will, if I make one, that they won't be obeyed if they include any of the above items. Nobody is going to turn my wake into a farewell party, since we all gotta respect the dead, even if it was my idea in the first place...
Then again, I do know lots of depressing songs, so maybe I can get them to sing along to those instead of the happier ones. Then when they've exhausted their supply of tears, somebody can start reminiscing about the good ol' times and get the mood more upbeat. Well, assuming there are any good ol' times to reminisce about. Maybe they'll even turn this blog into a book and stick on dedications and forewords and epilogues and stuff. If I have enough warning I'll probably write my epilogue myself... and I think I'd like to write my own epitaph too. It sounds like fun.
But how and when I'd like to die... those are difficult-ish questions... well, actually I've thought about both before. I certainly don't want a sudden death: if anything, I desire plenty of warning in advance so I can make the necessary preparations--order the party balloons, begin composing the epitaph, write a will etc. And as for when--I want it to be in a time of nothing-to-do. Y'know, like during a transition between stages of life. I've always disliked having to leave something half-done, so if I could choose, I'd rather die just after finishing something, before beginning something else. Like after finishing university, before starting work. Or after getting fired, before getting another job. Or after finishing a certain bit of research, before going on to the next project... as long as I leave behind no loose ends. As for how... it's slightly tougher, but I think some form of incurable disease wouldn't get any complaints from me, as long as I got a bit of peace and quiet in which to make preparations and all such stuff before the pain kicks in.
(Oh, and I would absolutely hate to get turned into a vegetable. No life support for me beyond
the minimum!)
Yes, I know I'm being very morbid here. But I just thought I ought to make some plans for the inevitable. Maybe the plans won't be carried out, maybe they won't be needed, who knows? I just like having them made.
Gah. My aunt is checking over the accounts I was griping about last week, and I'm being forcibly reminded of why I dropped Accounts: I make mistakes in balancing columns of numbers. Right now I've already managed to make several double payments, cause the business to apparently be in 900 thousand ringgit worth of debt, and mis-type several figures. I've also turned cheques into petty cash and vice versa, created phantom invoices and phantom cheques to match, and a few of the business's contacts have suddenly been overpaid by several thousand each. But everything seemed to balance when I did 'em! ...note to self, hire own accountant in future, don't try to do it myself. Because if I do, I'm going to put myself into bankruptcy.
...well, either that or I'll have to keep extremely tight control over my cheques, shopping habits, etc. Which I don't expect to have trouble with, except maybe when there's a huge book sale going on... like that Times Warehouse thing... I keep wanting to go but never quite make it somehow. Oh well, I do have plenty of books to read anyway, and there's loads of stuff online to read. The only problem is staring at the screen for too long hurts my eyes.
Aha! The next mistake is... accidentally not pressing the decimal button, thus multiplying some expense by ten. At this rate I'm going to have to do it all over again. *moans* That client is giving me nothing but trouble, one problem after another. I don't like them. Not at all.
...but the great wonderful thing I'm really looking forward to, afterwards, is printing out all the scores and chord sheets I've gotten off the Net, and then lugging the whole huge mass of paper back to the house to try out. I really want to get myself back up to scratch, my fingers are so rusty I can't even play the scales smoothly... but I'm getting better, I think. Hopefully anyway. At least now the scales almost sound like scales... but there's so much more to do! 3rds up and down, 5ths up and down, arpeggios, and goodness knows what else there is to do. But I'll be satisfied with knowing how to play the tunes I like. No good always pushing myself on to some unknown, unwanted goal anyway.
[Tuesday]
Apparently now Digi is having some weird plan where BubbleTalks are free on Monday, MMSes on Wednesday, and XMSes on Friday. The only problem with that plan is I don't even know what an XMS is... of course, I'll probably have no trouble figuring it out, but I don't really plan on using it that much. The Pig says it's used to send pictures and tunes or something like that, and really I can't see myself spending much time doing that. Of course, Friday being the day I make the 2-hour trip between the office and the Gorillas' home, I'll have a lot of time to experiment... the MMSes, on the other hand, look pretty good. I'll certainly want to give 'em a try.
On the other hand, the plan could affect only prepaid users, which would then make it useless as far as I'm concerned... but then again, since my dad pays the bills and I don't use any of the above much anyway, it won't affect me very much at all. Maybe it'll cut down a bit on the BubbleTalking between myself and the Pig, but hey, I can use SMSes. Much easier too... apparently my voice gets blurred or something in the Bubbles.
Hmmm. I've already started analysing my uncle's and aunt's personalities--almost instinctive, I think it is, by now. Read too many of those personality books and you start trying to pigeonhole everybody around you... but then the pigeonholes I use are broad indeed, so I don't really think of it as being narrow-minded. And besides it helps me cope with them better... anyway, my aunt is almost definitely a Choleric/Melancholy mix... for one thing, she knows all the details of the accounting program we use and can reel 'em off from memory. And she appreciates sarcasm (which makes it much easier for me to talk to her). And she doesn't like losing an argument...
My uncle, on the other hand, appears to be Sanguine/Melancholy--it's obvious from his speech: I find Sanguines tend to italicies, bolden, and underline every other word they say. They also tend to use inappropriately flowery language when they think it fits the occasion: like last week when my uncle bought me socks (oh yeah, they're impulse buyers too) and declared it a "wonderful gift"! And they tend to be rather physical. It accounts for the backrub I get everytime he passes by. Not that I don't enjoy it... but it does take some getting used to, especially since the most physical sign of affection I've ever shown is a hug. A very, very wooden hug too.
Now all this isn't bad in itself. My uncle is the PR guy of the place, and boy he does it well. The problem is that when he gets upset, everybody knows it at once.
[Wednesday]
It's as if my uncle's mood swings are a fact of life around the place by now: when he gets mad, everybody has a different strategy for it. My own,which seems to be working so far, is just to ignore it and be a little extra polite, and of course to get whatever needs doing done so his mood gets a little better. It didn't work yesterday, though, since I got lost while running the errand he sent me on and ended up finding my destination just as he drove up to it.
Needless to say the mood was not much improved.
Anyway... the last few days have convinced me that the world is divided into two kinds of people. The kind who dote on litle kids and the kind who wonder whether they prefer small children boiled or fried. I fall, unfortunately, under the second category. By "smal children", I mean "any human being of any gender below the age of 8". Just to keep definitions clear.
This opinion, is, I think, largely due to the prevailing influence of the vast majority of little kids I meet... most of them seem to be little brats who want everything and they want it five minutes ago by the sounds of it. And the worst thing is you can't yell back at them because you'll appear to be stopping to their level, and you can't smack them because that's child abuse and their parents are going to sue your underpants off for even thinking of touching their kid's behind, never mind that you were going to do it with a cat o' nine tails.
And then they scream and shout and throw their incredibly loud tantrums when you don't give them whatever they want, be it ice cream or a canned drink or the laptop you're using. And, the part I really hate, they cry. Weeping floods of noisy tears over some stupid want of theirs. I suppose they do it because it works--the vast majority of parents try to pacify crying by satisfying the desire.
And the annoying thing is that they do it in as public a place as possible, almost as if they'd planned the performance out. Well, I am so not falling for any of these... ever. My sister and I have already agreed that our children (if we have any) will not see the inside of a shopping mall until at least 8, so there's no chance of them developing the "I WANT NOW!!" syndrome.
I've also resolved that if they ever throw a tantrum, I am going to gag and handcuff them, then anaesthetise them. I bet after awhile they won't dare to cry for fear of the syringe. Sure, they'll grow up with loads of psychological issues, but the point is that I will be just fine. Besides, I'm not going to let them within 10 meters of any computer-like device, including the phone, until at least 10. Sure it'll be difficult, but I'll find a way. Such as not having a phone, banning them from sleepovers or visiting houses, and blacking out all references to such things in the dictionaries, encyclopediae, etc, so they won't have a chance to develop such things until they're old enough to understand the meaning of "no".
Plus I'll flood the house in books so they'll be forced to read,and maybe they'll get so used to that that they won't want a computer or TV anyway. After all, I lived like that for ages and look how I've turned out... admittedly it has its flaws, but the point is that they'll come out of it with nearly flawless English so I can have intelligent arguments with them about curfews and such instead of having to correct their grammar every other word or so.
Maybe I'll even encourage them to take lots and lots of naps so I can get past the terrible 8 years as quickly as possible. Of course, I bet I'm going to have to buy lots of gags and handcuffs and such things, but then again I can improvise with socks and shoelaces and such things. And of course I'll try not to be all rules and sour faces, even I can't stand such people. But it remains to be seen if I ever do have kids.
(And who knows, they might actually turn out normal. With half of their genes coming from me, the chances of that are an estimated 400 against 1.)
Over the last weekend, two deaths came to my knowledge, both due to cancer. One was of a 3-year-old kid, succumbing to some form of cancer that tends to strike infants; one was a 67-year-old man, succumbing to skin cancer. Both were Christians. I found out about both through SMS. Both were prayed for, but both, obviously, died. I was one degree apart from each, connected to the child through the Gorilla and to the man through one of the teachers from RBS. I attended neither's funeral or wake, though I hope both went well...
What I'm trying to say here is that all deaths seem to be very much the same. The manner in which they occur vary slightly, but in all cases the result is identical: a hunk of meat... Well, people have been dying for thousands of years in all sorts of ways, and I expect fully to follow in the tradition. Except I don't think my own will be too conventional... well, if I must be remembered then I might as well be remembered for having a most flamboyant funeral. At least then I'll have attended one party I'll really have enjoyed... hahaha. Morbid humour does not become me.
Death is a most interesting topic, universal as it is. Everybody is interested in it, mostly as a curiousity they hope will never happen to them... that, I guess, explains all the anti-aging, life-prolonging treatments and drugs and whatnot that pervade the modern medical landscape. I for one don't plan to ever take one of those: right now I don't think I'm likely ever to complain about my life having been too short. If anything, if I should be so fortunate as to be able to know when to expect my death, I would spend my last few days running around and jumping in glee. (If, of course, I were allowed to. Quite likely I'll be bedridden and unconscious by then, but oh well.)
Anyway... I was chatting last night on MSN with the Drummer (whom I met in RBS) about all this. Death and such... and you know, it really got me thinking about my own impending death.
Well, maybe "impending" sounds like it's coming too soon. How about "approaching" or "coming" or "inevitable"? But in any case death will come for me. Either that or the Rapture, and somehow I'm not sure which one will be more comfortable. In heaven I plan for my mansion to be distinguishable by the sheer amount of sofas and soft cushions scattered about it. Naturally, it won't be at all orderly, but then the point of comfort is to not be tidy. Comfort, in my opinion, involves sprawling about in undignified positions, surrounded by all manner of odd or homely objects in the most accidental of postures. Maybe I'll even ask to be buried in a sitting position so my poor old bones don't get cramped. But I digress...
We were discussing the services at first, I remember. Then from there we got on to discussing how services usually go--I have little experience there, having attended very few funerals. The first funeral I ever attended--my great-grandmother, I think, when I was about 4 or 5-- left me with an impression that funerals are when you go see people put a box in the ground, cry, and then hand out boxes of chrysanthemum tea. The second funeral I eve attended--I don't remember who it might have been--destroyed that impression because they didn't serve out anything to drink, and left me with the idea that funerals are thirsty places to be. And wakes aren't much more enjoyable when you don't know whoever it is died and everybody else seems to be sniffling and in no mood to make small talk.
And so I've decided that my wake and my funeral are not going to be places where people sniffle and avoid making small talk. Heck, death is a good thing! Not very enjoyable for those left behind, of course, but I don't plan for the last thing I can affect on this earth to be a sad affair. I don't do sad affairs-- the world is depressing enough as it is, we need more real happiness, even if it is rather temporary. So I want my wake to be a party. Lots of nice music, my favourite anime OSTs, karaoke lounges, maybe confetti and paper streamers and those little whistles that shoot out paper rolls when you blow 'em. I want a live band playing happy songs and a dance floor. I want an all-you-can-eat buffet table and nothing on that table that might suggest grief. The dress code will be anything but black or white--we want colour, people! Splashes of red and blue and green liberally strewn about the place, maybe with those huge soft cushions on the floor for anybody whose feet get sore. And anybody who wants to stay sober--for 'em, I think I'll prepare Guy Fawkes masks, stovepipe hats, and those huge black ankle-length cloaks that fasten at the neck. So sue me, I like the V-for-Vendetta wardrobe. Then they can swoop around looking like Professor Snape and add to the general merriment.
Oh, of course sooner or later there's got to be some sad bits. It's only natural for people to want to cry at this sort of function; it's traditional, after all, to go through boxes of tissue paper at such things. Well, maybe hopefully somebody will miss me or something, who knows? But... gah, I don't know. I simply don't cope well with massive overflows of emotion. So I hope nobody cries or any such thing. Well, I can't prevent it... but I can make sure the drinks are spiked with antidepressants and there's laughing gas being pumped into the airconditioning... oh, yeah, I'm rambling off again. But it's pretty much a given that no matter what instructions I leave in my will, if I make one, that they won't be obeyed if they include any of the above items. Nobody is going to turn my wake into a farewell party, since we all gotta respect the dead, even if it was my idea in the first place...
Then again, I do know lots of depressing songs, so maybe I can get them to sing along to those instead of the happier ones. Then when they've exhausted their supply of tears, somebody can start reminiscing about the good ol' times and get the mood more upbeat. Well, assuming there are any good ol' times to reminisce about. Maybe they'll even turn this blog into a book and stick on dedications and forewords and epilogues and stuff. If I have enough warning I'll probably write my epilogue myself... and I think I'd like to write my own epitaph too. It sounds like fun.
But how and when I'd like to die... those are difficult-ish questions... well, actually I've thought about both before. I certainly don't want a sudden death: if anything, I desire plenty of warning in advance so I can make the necessary preparations--order the party balloons, begin composing the epitaph, write a will etc. And as for when--I want it to be in a time of nothing-to-do. Y'know, like during a transition between stages of life. I've always disliked having to leave something half-done, so if I could choose, I'd rather die just after finishing something, before beginning something else. Like after finishing university, before starting work. Or after getting fired, before getting another job. Or after finishing a certain bit of research, before going on to the next project... as long as I leave behind no loose ends. As for how... it's slightly tougher, but I think some form of incurable disease wouldn't get any complaints from me, as long as I got a bit of peace and quiet in which to make preparations and all such stuff before the pain kicks in.
(Oh, and I would absolutely hate to get turned into a vegetable. No life support for me beyond
the minimum!)
Yes, I know I'm being very morbid here. But I just thought I ought to make some plans for the inevitable. Maybe the plans won't be carried out, maybe they won't be needed, who knows? I just like having them made.
Gah. My aunt is checking over the accounts I was griping about last week, and I'm being forcibly reminded of why I dropped Accounts: I make mistakes in balancing columns of numbers. Right now I've already managed to make several double payments, cause the business to apparently be in 900 thousand ringgit worth of debt, and mis-type several figures. I've also turned cheques into petty cash and vice versa, created phantom invoices and phantom cheques to match, and a few of the business's contacts have suddenly been overpaid by several thousand each. But everything seemed to balance when I did 'em! ...note to self, hire own accountant in future, don't try to do it myself. Because if I do, I'm going to put myself into bankruptcy.
...well, either that or I'll have to keep extremely tight control over my cheques, shopping habits, etc. Which I don't expect to have trouble with, except maybe when there's a huge book sale going on... like that Times Warehouse thing... I keep wanting to go but never quite make it somehow. Oh well, I do have plenty of books to read anyway, and there's loads of stuff online to read. The only problem is staring at the screen for too long hurts my eyes.
Aha! The next mistake is... accidentally not pressing the decimal button, thus multiplying some expense by ten. At this rate I'm going to have to do it all over again. *moans* That client is giving me nothing but trouble, one problem after another. I don't like them. Not at all.
...but the great wonderful thing I'm really looking forward to, afterwards, is printing out all the scores and chord sheets I've gotten off the Net, and then lugging the whole huge mass of paper back to the house to try out. I really want to get myself back up to scratch, my fingers are so rusty I can't even play the scales smoothly... but I'm getting better, I think. Hopefully anyway. At least now the scales almost sound like scales... but there's so much more to do! 3rds up and down, 5ths up and down, arpeggios, and goodness knows what else there is to do. But I'll be satisfied with knowing how to play the tunes I like. No good always pushing myself on to some unknown, unwanted goal anyway.
[Tuesday]
Apparently now Digi is having some weird plan where BubbleTalks are free on Monday, MMSes on Wednesday, and XMSes on Friday. The only problem with that plan is I don't even know what an XMS is... of course, I'll probably have no trouble figuring it out, but I don't really plan on using it that much. The Pig says it's used to send pictures and tunes or something like that, and really I can't see myself spending much time doing that. Of course, Friday being the day I make the 2-hour trip between the office and the Gorillas' home, I'll have a lot of time to experiment... the MMSes, on the other hand, look pretty good. I'll certainly want to give 'em a try.
On the other hand, the plan could affect only prepaid users, which would then make it useless as far as I'm concerned... but then again, since my dad pays the bills and I don't use any of the above much anyway, it won't affect me very much at all. Maybe it'll cut down a bit on the BubbleTalking between myself and the Pig, but hey, I can use SMSes. Much easier too... apparently my voice gets blurred or something in the Bubbles.
Hmmm. I've already started analysing my uncle's and aunt's personalities--almost instinctive, I think it is, by now. Read too many of those personality books and you start trying to pigeonhole everybody around you... but then the pigeonholes I use are broad indeed, so I don't really think of it as being narrow-minded. And besides it helps me cope with them better... anyway, my aunt is almost definitely a Choleric/Melancholy mix... for one thing, she knows all the details of the accounting program we use and can reel 'em off from memory. And she appreciates sarcasm (which makes it much easier for me to talk to her). And she doesn't like losing an argument...
My uncle, on the other hand, appears to be Sanguine/Melancholy--it's obvious from his speech: I find Sanguines tend to italicies, bolden, and underline every other word they say. They also tend to use inappropriately flowery language when they think it fits the occasion: like last week when my uncle bought me socks (oh yeah, they're impulse buyers too) and declared it a "wonderful gift"! And they tend to be rather physical. It accounts for the backrub I get everytime he passes by. Not that I don't enjoy it... but it does take some getting used to, especially since the most physical sign of affection I've ever shown is a hug. A very, very wooden hug too.
Now all this isn't bad in itself. My uncle is the PR guy of the place, and boy he does it well. The problem is that when he gets upset, everybody knows it at once.
[Wednesday]
It's as if my uncle's mood swings are a fact of life around the place by now: when he gets mad, everybody has a different strategy for it. My own,which seems to be working so far, is just to ignore it and be a little extra polite, and of course to get whatever needs doing done so his mood gets a little better. It didn't work yesterday, though, since I got lost while running the errand he sent me on and ended up finding my destination just as he drove up to it.
Needless to say the mood was not much improved.
Anyway... the last few days have convinced me that the world is divided into two kinds of people. The kind who dote on litle kids and the kind who wonder whether they prefer small children boiled or fried. I fall, unfortunately, under the second category. By "smal children", I mean "any human being of any gender below the age of 8". Just to keep definitions clear.
This opinion, is, I think, largely due to the prevailing influence of the vast majority of little kids I meet... most of them seem to be little brats who want everything and they want it five minutes ago by the sounds of it. And the worst thing is you can't yell back at them because you'll appear to be stopping to their level, and you can't smack them because that's child abuse and their parents are going to sue your underpants off for even thinking of touching their kid's behind, never mind that you were going to do it with a cat o' nine tails.
And then they scream and shout and throw their incredibly loud tantrums when you don't give them whatever they want, be it ice cream or a canned drink or the laptop you're using. And, the part I really hate, they cry. Weeping floods of noisy tears over some stupid want of theirs. I suppose they do it because it works--the vast majority of parents try to pacify crying by satisfying the desire.
And the annoying thing is that they do it in as public a place as possible, almost as if they'd planned the performance out. Well, I am so not falling for any of these... ever. My sister and I have already agreed that our children (if we have any) will not see the inside of a shopping mall until at least 8, so there's no chance of them developing the "I WANT NOW!!" syndrome.
I've also resolved that if they ever throw a tantrum, I am going to gag and handcuff them, then anaesthetise them. I bet after awhile they won't dare to cry for fear of the syringe. Sure, they'll grow up with loads of psychological issues, but the point is that I will be just fine. Besides, I'm not going to let them within 10 meters of any computer-like device, including the phone, until at least 10. Sure it'll be difficult, but I'll find a way. Such as not having a phone, banning them from sleepovers or visiting houses, and blacking out all references to such things in the dictionaries, encyclopediae, etc, so they won't have a chance to develop such things until they're old enough to understand the meaning of "no".
Plus I'll flood the house in books so they'll be forced to read,and maybe they'll get so used to that that they won't want a computer or TV anyway. After all, I lived like that for ages and look how I've turned out... admittedly it has its flaws, but the point is that they'll come out of it with nearly flawless English so I can have intelligent arguments with them about curfews and such instead of having to correct their grammar every other word or so.
Maybe I'll even encourage them to take lots and lots of naps so I can get past the terrible 8 years as quickly as possible. Of course, I bet I'm going to have to buy lots of gags and handcuffs and such things, but then again I can improvise with socks and shoelaces and such things. And of course I'll try not to be all rules and sour faces, even I can't stand such people. But it remains to be seen if I ever do have kids.
(And who knows, they might actually turn out normal. With half of their genes coming from me, the chances of that are an estimated 400 against 1.)
Comments
"the world is divided into two kinds of people. The kind who dote on litle kids and the kind who wonder whether they prefer small children boiled or fried. I fall, unfortunately, under the second category."
AMEN.
The next time I have problem with irritating little kids... can I call you to my rescue? :P
-anna-