Seeking Scar

This morning as I ambled back from school, after delivering the Spawn of my Loins to his place of daytime incarceration, I was seized by an idea. Actually, I need to go back a step and deal with a small matter. My son loves school, he positively enjoys it, and for more than just eating his play lunch and getting the odd ball colliding with his happysack. By his age, I had come to dread school, just the sheer boredom of so much of it, apart from my standard four year with Mrs Burke, when I was ten years old.

Mrs Burke, who had a severe, blonde bun, also had a husband who worked as a pilot for Air New Zealand. She was encouraging and could be extremely stern, but did have the wonderful idea for the school concert of staging Camelot. She modified the lines somewhat, and took a veritable chainsaw to the plot, but the highlight of the show was me, well for me and my parents at least. It was staged in the old Halswell Hall, a barn of a place, sort of both dusty and damp, drafty and heated by several inadequate bar heaters from the exposed rafters. But it did have an elevated stage and a curtain.

For Camelot the cast, drawn from my class, were in costume. I was in a red dress, made up like a harlot and with two black rubber balls stuffed down the front of the dress, I had more bust than Pamela Anderson and probably about as attractive as the murderous, red caped dwarf in Don't Look Now. I got to sing about three lines and had a peck on the cheek from a fair knight (who was a girl). It was stardom, and saved me in the class from my usual distractions of seeing how long I could silently hold my breath, whether I could master whistling with cupped hands or adding up the number of letters in other pupils names. It was a good year.

Anyway, my idea today as I sauntered home, was just how useful and wonderful it would be to have a prehensile tail. Don't scoff! It would be immensely useful. Think, it's raining, you are leading the dog and talking on your mobile telephonic apparatus. At the moment, as you are, a regular biped, you have to either cease one's conversation using the dispenser of radiation, or let the mutt run free. This is where a prehensile tail would be invaluable, it could hold either the umbrella, the phone or the dog and life would be peachy.

I can also see a use on the bike, no more crashes with one hand stuck rummaging about in back pockets trying to find that last morsel of food to stave off a whimper, with one's tail one could keep both hands on the bars and comfortably search one's pockets, or even more devilish, the pockets of others for sustenance.

I mentioned this idea to my minion after school today, he was mortified, mainly because, even though he had to admit it was quite useful, it would be damned embarrassing for him at school to be known to have a father who is slightly mutated and happy about it.

I'll flag the idea, as I want him to continue to enjoy school, and not rely on being in drag to make the school day interesting.