Joy Division

Yes, I wrote another story. This one is as appropriate as it gets. Totally 'G' possibly 'PG'. PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME WRITE A FILM REVIEW!

Joy Division

"Let's dance to joy division, and celebrate the irony, everything is going wrong, but we're so happy." - The Wombats

Life is hard. From the moment of birth your worst nightmare comes true; naked and crying in a room full of medical professionals and your mother. But don’t be fooled into thinking that will be your only time being naked in public!

Before you have the ability to flatly refuse and stomp to your bedroom, or even to just thrash on the ground of a supermarket to get what you want, your mother takes to you to your future school to bath you. Unfortunately she missed the memo that taking your child’s clothes in front of a class of eagre seven-year-olds can scar them for life if they ever find out. You always find out. Not only that but these seven-year-olds don’t forget. So one day, you’re walking down the street and BAM! There they are and you’re remembering and they’re remembering and all the credibility you ever thought you had is gone.

You do your best to not even let a whisper of the time your darling mother breastfed you at your current school enter your mind. You don’t dare to think of yourself enjoying the only lunch you had in front of not one, but two year 10 science classes and a teacher. A teacher you now see every day. The only comfort you have is that they don’t have any credibility either.

Even after you start looking after yourself a little, bad things can and often do happen. Curiosity may have killed your neighbour’s cat but it also gets a three-year-old you stuck under a garage door. You think that sounds bad? Trying getting stuck when you’re really, really busting. First it’s warm and wet, then it’s cold and wet, after that it’s just gross. Someday you might even be able to thank your mother for taking photos for your future reflection. Or not.

There were some high points in your early life however, involving art. Scissors were a tool of choice for your creativity. You were so generous with your ‘art’. But your generosity wasn’t always appreciated, particularly when it involved sitting in a wardrobe with scissors. Your mother liked her new altered clothes so much you got to spend the next week with your grandparents.

Before you think that there are no more stories of public nakedness, think again. Naked, dirty and disorientated. Staggering home only to realise you don’t really know where you’ve been for the past few hours. After some investigation you discover you had in fact been playing in the neighbour’s sprinkler and, being the responsible child you are, you didn’t want to get your clothes dirty. So, logically, you took them off. Eventually you got tired. So again, logically, you went to sleep, under the sprinkler, in the dirt. You did eventually make it home even if it was with dirt instead of clothes.

Starting school wasn’t much better. After waiting an hour after school finished for someone to collect you, you really start to wonder if they have forgotten your existence. It wasn’t until the last staff member locked the last door you bother to ask if you’re allowed to go home yet. This continued into High School when you wait in the car park because you didn’t have to worry about them forgetting to pick you up but your father forgetting to tell you he was on bus duty.

Holidays are a whole new kind of labour; especially when a dog chews on the rope anchoring your boat. Then the boat floats away and you have to canoe half way out to sea, somehow climbing into the boat and then getting the canoe into the boat. It sucks when that happens – twice. Or after two weeks away on holiday and the best part was the lettuce.

Being more “grown-up” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. When you get so mad that your blood boils and all you want to do is... throw a pancake at the roof. People really judge you after that. You’re still reminded of that anger every time you look at the stain on the roof.

Being one child of ten can sometimes be a trial, mostly when people ask you if you know all their names or when the ancient teachers call you Michael when you thought it was pretty obvious you’re not a man. But the worst part of having so many siblings is learning exactly where babies come from. When the genius of the class realizes how disgusting it is and connects it to you having nine siblings. That’s when you really wish you were invisible, even if it is just to beat up the jerk that started it.

“We are born naked, wet and hungry. Then things get worse.” Better words were never spoken.