Month: February 2019

Recently, I took Kit to visit the zoo. He was so young the last time we went that he didn’t remember much. This resulted in him asking a lot of questions.

“Do ducks use snorkels? Can a tortoise ever be homeless? Do fish climb trees? And, my favourite, “How old were you when you got your tail docked?”

“I can’t answer that question,” I replied, explaining, “I never had a tail.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said in a stage whisper, “Are you some kind of mutant?”

“No, dear,” I answered, sighing, “I mean humans don’t grow tails.”

“Shut up!” he exclaimed, looking shocked, “All the other mammals here have tails. Except the orangutans. I read about humans docking dogs’ tails, so I thought you must have all been docked as well.”

“Well, orangutans are apes, like us,” I explained, “And apes don’t have tails, like monkeys do. But some humans object to being called apes, so we use the word ‘hominoid.’”

“But apes are awesome!” Kit exclaimed, “They are so strong they can bend iron bars. And they can swing around in the trees and do acrobatics, like a ninja superhero. Who wouldn’t want to do that?!”

“And can you explain about that?” he said, pointing at a zebra.

“You mean its stripes?” I asked, honing in on its most obvious feature.”

“No, I mean its mane,” Kit corrected, explaining, “How come zebras and lions and horses all have ‘manes’, and humans have ‘hair’?”

“That’s a really good question,” I replied, adjusting his position on my shoulder.

“And what’s a really good answer?” he asked cheekily, adjusting himself back.

“I don’t know,” I mused, adding, “Well, there is a long history of certain types of humans wanting to distinguish themselves from other animals.”

Kit swiftly extinguished that idea by pointing out, “Yeah, but dogs have ‘hair,’”

“Well I suppose that’s not the explanation then,” I conceded. “But I did once meet a woman who declared, ‘I didn’t evolve from an ape!’”

“You’d have to be pretty special to think that!” Kit said, “It doesn’t sound like she had evolved much at all.”

“But, there is, unfortunately, a long history of a certain type of human thinking that our species is more evolved, and better than all the other species on earth,” I confessed.

“Well, that’s ridiculous!” Kit said dismissively, “You don’t even have tails! All the best animals have tails.”

“When you were little,” Kit began, “In the Olden Days. Were there dinosaurs?”

“Excuse me!” I replied, “They were extinct 65 million years before I was born.”

“But weren’t there loads of animals that are extinct now?” he asked.

“Yes, probably,” I conceded, “But not dinosaurs.”

“What about Megafauna?” he quizzed, “They must have been around. Didn’t you have to sleep in really tall trees to protect yourselves?”

“Um…no. The megafauna were also before me. We slept in beds. In houses. But it was before fitted sheets had been invented,” I added, “So things were a bit more difficult. What with hospital corners, and everything, we didn’t have all the free time that people do now days,” I love messing with him.

“But we worked out that you’re old enough to be my great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother in meerkat years, so you’re actually really old.”

“If only great respect came with great age,” I quipped.

“I respect you heaps, Mum!” he quickly piped up.

“Thank you, Kit.”

“Except when you tell me off.”

“…or make me tidy up, or go to bed.”

“…or make me change my socks. It’s hard to respect someone who makes you change your socks.”

“You don’t even wear socks,” I objected.

“Yes, but if I did, I know you would make me change them,” he explained.

“You are extrapolating inappropriately,” I complained.

“I am not!” he exclaimed, “I never extra anything unless you make me.”

“Anyway,” he went on, concerned, “Is there anything we can do to stop all the extinction?”

“There’s always something we can do,” I answered, “When I was a little girl, in Wellington in the 1980s, many native species of birds were so endangered that I had never even seen one. Back then, the New Zealand government set up conservation programs. In the last few years, I’ve seen birds like tui, kereru and kea, not just in sanctuaries, but in people’s back yards. Once, when I was out hiking, I even saw a blue duck.”

“Did you really, Mum?” Kit was excited, “Aren’t they the famous ones on our ten dollar note?”

“Yes they are! And I even got a photo.”

“Wow!” Kit exclaimed, “That’s even better than getting a photo of Edmund Hillary; he’s only on the five dollar note!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was even more unlikely because Edmund Hillary has been unavailable for photo opportunities since 2008, due being deceased.

“Take my photo with the ten dollar note,” he begged, so I did.

“From now on,” he joked, “I’m not going to call it ten bucks. I’m going to say ten ducks.”

“You’ll make a great Dad some day!” I told him.

I had the following conversation with Kit (very) early one morning. In my defense, I am one of those people whose intellectual faculties tend to sleep in. They generally don’t wake up until about half an hour after I do.

“Mum, have I been vacationed?” Kit enquired.

“Well, we say, ‘been on vacation,’ but yes, you have, a couple of times,” I replied, “Don’t you remember?”

“Not really. Did it hurt?” he asked.

Confused, I answered like a fool, “I don’t recall you hurting yourself, no.”

“And am I protected, now?” he continued.

“What? You mean like travel insurance?” I asked feebly.

“No, I mean, can I still get sick?” he answered.

“Well, lots of people get sick on vacation,” I replied, bemused.

“So, people go on vacation, and they still get sick?” He sounded exasperated.

“Yes. You’re actually more likely to get sick on vacation especially if you visit a foreign country. ”

“That’s not what it says on the internet. It says most people don’t get sick on vacation. I mean what would be the point of going on vacation otherwise? And why would you need to go to a foreign country? Aren’t Australian vacations just as good?”

“Well, admittedly, getting sick on vacation is a bit disappointing, but you can’t just not go on vacation in case you get sick,” I objected.

Kit interjected, “But that’s the whole point of vacations!”

“Although, if you stay in Australia to go on vacation, you are less likely to get sick,” I continued.

Finally, the penny dropped as my intellectual faculties kicked in, “Wait a minute…we’re not talking about holidays, are we?”

“What? No. I’m talking about vacations.”

“And when you read about these ‘vacations’ on the internet, did they look like this?” I scribbled on my shopping list, and showed him the printed word, “Or might there have been a few extra letters, unaccounted for?”

“Yes, a few,” Kit wrote out ‘vaccination,’ and pointed, “I think, when I say it, a couple of the letters are less enthusiastic as the others, and sort of wander off on the way out.”

“Ok, that’s vak-sin-aye-shun,” I explained, “Forget everything I just said.”

“I can’t just forget on demand” he objected, “At least not without a lot of vodka,” he added hopefully. (I ignored that comment.)

“Well, then. Just remember it’s all wrong. I thought you were talking about holidays.”

“So have I been on vaccination?”

“We actually only say, ‘on vacation.’ Where vaccination is concerned, we just say, ‘You have been vaccinated,” I said, avoiding the question.

“Oh. I thought going on vaccination was just a weird way we say it in Australia,” Kit explained.

“Actually, the weird way we say it here is, ‘going on holiday,’” I explained.

“So, I should be vaccinated before I go on vacation, but only if I go to a foreign country?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

“So have I been vaccinated?”

Kit has not been vaccinated against anything except cat flu, since he spends little time around his own kind, from whom he could catch diseases (and, also, I am a bad mother). As a result, he is a healthy as an ox (a very small, taxidermied one). Lucky Kit!

“Yes, you have,” I answered, which is technically true. Fortunately, he didn’t ask for the details.

We have a vacuum cleaner at work, a Pacvac Superpro 700, which Kit saw me use once. He was fascinated, as he had never seen a backpack vacuum cleaner. While I cleaned, he rode along on top of it, staving off boredom by inspecting the harness. I staved off boredom by suffering a pain in my head and neck. This came about when he fell, grabbed hold of my hair to regain his balance, and simultaneously knocked my glasses off and kicked me in the neck. Then he said (rather ironically, I felt), “Phew! That was close.”

“Kit!” I chastised, “You are literally a pain in the neck.”

“Good one Mum! That’s funny,” he giggled. (It wasn’t.)

Unbeknownst to me, he then he decided to see how it all held together, and undid the Velcro. Unfortunately, the Velcro was the only thing keeping the vacuum on my back. Kit was sitting on the vacuum when he undid the Velcro, so this time he did go for a tumble. But, in true Kit style, he found something soft to land on, or, more accurately, to land in. Kit’s saviour was an unidentified substance that had once been lunch, but had been unfit for that label for quite some time, judging by the smell of it (and later Kit); he had gracefully dismounted straight into a rubbish bin! I dissuaded him from licking his fur, and took him home for a bath.

A few months later, Kit asked me to write a new story about him as the Superhero, First Aid Kit. But this time he wanted his superpower to involve flying around with his Jetpack.

“Like the one at your work,” he explained, “the Jetpack Uberpro 1000.”

“Actually, it’s called a Pacvac Superpro 700,” I corrected, “And you really did go flying last time you got near one.”

He glared at me, “But mine’s different. It’s a jetpack for flying around on purpose. Not a stupid vacuum cleaner designed especially for falling off. That vacuum cleaner just gave me the idea.”

He continued, “I could fly around and rescue people from the baddies. I was going to feed the baddies to Tiddles, my pet T-rex, but then I remembered he’s a vegetarian.

“Just how bad are the baddies?” I asked, troubled, “Do you really think they deserve to die?”

“Everyone dies,” Kit replied, “Whether they deserve it or not.” I couldn’t argue with that.

He went on, “And they’re pretty bad baddies. Maybe I could suck them up in a giant Superpro vacuum cleaner, and keep them there, like a kind of prison.”

“Okay. That could work,” I agreed. But I wasn’t so sure about his next request:

“If I’m not allowed to kill them, how about this? They get trapped in the vacuum cleaner and have to listen to you lecturing about cleaning up after themselves, and Dad telling jokes. Forever. I’m pretty sure they deserve that!”