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Friday, April 23, 2004
My son, the Towelhead
Thank the English and/or American God it's Friday, because that means it's America's Worst Mother™ day and it's time to relive the hilarious hijinks of America's Most Disturbing Family (registered trademark applied for): Meghan, Mr. Meghan, Felspar, Belfast, Precioso, and Addendum.
In today's unlikely episode, featuring a cameo appearance by Mr. Meghan as "the reluctant stroller-pusher", the Gurdons are off to church with son, Precioso, who has accessorized his standard English schoolboy look with a head scarf and driftwood scimitar.
Paris is standing inside our front door, waiting for the rest of the family to come downstairs. He is dressed in shorts, polo shirt, socks, and shoes; in his belt he has tucked a curved length of driftwood. And on his head, he is wearing --
"Oh no," I say, coming into the front hall, "Sorry, but you're not wearing that to church."
"Why not?"
"Well, because it's -- " My husband comes down the stairs and I appeal to him. "I'm just explaining to Paris that it's the wrong time in history for him to ? "
"What's that on your head, Paris?" Molly interrupts from the landing.
"He's a bedouin," says my husband, amused. "Right?"
"What's a... whatever-you-said?"
"Bedouin are Arabs who roam around, nomadic people."
And roam the Gurdon's must, biffing ("biffing" being to Gurdon what "axiomatic" is to George Will) off to church. Unfortunately a rowdy gang of Little Green Football readers passes by in car, and seeing Precioso decked out like The Littlest Arab, they jump out and kick his ass. Then they high-five each other and run home to embellish the story so that they can post it in the LGF comments.
Okay. That part didn't happen, but it would have made this week's column a lot more fun and interesting and satisfying.
Anyway.
Molly drops into place beside me, who am striding along in the middle with the empty stroller. The marital arrangement is that my husband pushes strollers uphill, whereas I push them on flat or downhill portions; perhaps it is my imagination, but the route always seems to be flat or downhill. In fact it is like walking on an enormous Mobius strip that a giant is forever tipping against one's favor.
As you can see, God (in the role of the giant) hates Meghan despite the fact that she is pious and takes her kids to church to worship Him and even though she makes her husband leave his slutty The Hill intern love poodle on Sundays to come home and make a great show of going to church for the neighbors. God is funny that way. He really is.
As we can see from Meghan's "wrong time in history" comment, she's having a little case of the Big Bad Liberal PC Blues, but she soon gets over it when she sees some of them:
Up ahead, Paris has unsheathed his makeshift scimitar and is jumping around making "Pfwaah!" noises as he beheads invisible baddies. Washington streets on Sunday mornings are generally pretty quiet, apart from the inevitable joggers, but today by embarrassing coincidence we cross paths with two women swathed in head-to-toe black who are coming from the vicinity of a mosque in the direction from which we have come.
Paris biffs and pfwaah's past them, and I see them exchange a glance. They pass the rest of us without acknowledgement, but I cannot resist looking back. When I do, I see that they too are looking back, at our small swashbuckling sheik, and only the Supreme Bee knows what is passing through their chador-shrouded thoughts. I hope they are not feeling mocked; at the same time, I hope they are not thinking what I would be thinking if I happened to be strolling through Riyadh and saw a local boy in G.I. camouflage, firing off a wooden M-249, which would be, roughly, "Huzzah!"
Because, you know, the "chador-shrouded" probably all think that way and are probably on their way to hijack a plane and crash it into the Chuckie Cheese where the Gurdon children will playing later in the day. Their God is funny that way.
Oh. And he's probably American or English, because that's what the Bible is written in.
You can look it up.
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