ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (10)

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (10)
"IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME"

Its Saturday and I'm in the flat waiting for Emil and Oscar. I'm reclining in the folding chair which has now been joined by a sofa. You may well ask yourself why, if I have a sofa, I'm still making use of the folding chair. I will say no more than this; "IKEA".

I could have written a whole blog on the topic but it is not only the sofa that is new, I now have television. This is why I have not posted for two months. Every time I feel inspired to commit to writing some humorous incident in my life that illustrates a universal truth I find there is something unmissible on television; like the episode of Time Team where they unearth a medieaval cheese factory that had stood in the grounds of Sir Roger D'Airylea's castle or an episode of QI on Dave that I think I might not have seen.

Right now I'm watching Field of Dreams which taps right into the whole mid-life thing. The Kevin Costner character is decent and honest and hard working but that doesn't seem to be enoough. He is struggling financially and spiritually. So what does he do? He tears up one of his best fields and spends what little money he has building a floodlit baseball diamond. He follows his dream and because he believes in his dream it becomes a reality. "If you build it they will come." Dead baseball players emerge from the corn and start playing baseball in his backyard. And it is hard not to feel just a little bit emotional at that point because goddammit he deserves it! But the reason we feel emotional is because deep down we recognise for most people, most of the time, it doesn't matter how truly they believe or how hard they work to make their dream a reality, when they build it nobody comes. In fact they don't even call to say they won't be coming so I figure I should feel lucky that at least my phone rings.

It is Oscar. "Hi Dad, we're going to be late."
This is supposed to be my time with the boys. I have cleaned, I have tidied, I have made ready. "Not to worry," I say. "How long do you think you'll be?"
At the other end of the line I can hear Oscar shouting to his mother and I can hear ill humoured muttering in response. "Dad? Mum says we'll be there when we get there."
"I'll see you then."

Two hours later the intercom buzzes and I let the boys in. They have the sullen resentful air of children who have endured boredom of epic proportions. "What do you want to do?" I ask.

Oscar thrusts a large bag towards me. "We've brought the PS3 with us. Can we set it up?"

This is not really the quality father son time I had in mind but I go wiith the flow. "Suren help yourselves." Oscar busies himself plugging in cables.

"How's school been?" I ask.

"OK," grunts Emil.

"Do you want to give me a little more detail?"

"We had sex education," says Emil.

"How was that?"

"Stupid! They spend all this time telling you how to do it then they tell you not to do it. Waste of time if you ask me."

I find it difficult to take issue with the logic. "I suppose they just want to give you information to keep you safe. What kind of stuff did they tell you?"

"The woman who taught us brought in all these condoms and showed us how to use them." I can sense Emil is warming to the topic and even Oscar is surreptitiously listening in.

"Well that's good," I say, for the want of anything better.

"Dad?" enquires Emil. "Why do they make condoms in strawberry flavour?"

I silently damn the woman who has thought to introduce this complication into the lesson. It is the work of a nano second to decide that now is neither the time nor the place to begin an exxposition on the subject of oral sex. "Its in case you run out of chewing gum," I say but I can tell that Emil is not entirely convinced.

Oscar has by this time finished setting up the PS3 and the boys throw themselves onto the sofa, controllers in hand. I gaze at them indulgently and Oscar looks back at me as if he has something he wants to say. "What is it Oscar?" I ask.

"Dad, why is the sofa so hard?"

"Its a long story Oscar."