Family Snippets - 19. And The Winner Is...

I’m not a competitive person, at least not normally.

I’m not sure where Colin gets it from, but he always likes to be the winnest.

“Daddy, how about a race to the end and back?”

We’d been riding our bikes at the local high school on a Sunday afternoon, and I was thinking it was about time to finish. When Colin challenged me, we were in the carpark. I don’t know what it is that prompted my response, so I’ll just assume it was temporary insanity.

“Sure, Colin.”

“I’m going to win, because I’ve got the fastest bike.”

In hindsight, what I did next was stupid, possibly even crazy. I decided to try to win. I had the most noble of intentions at the time. Colin had to learn he couldn’t be the winnest at everything, and that the important thing was just to try as hard as you could.

Colin had a fixed-gear bike, while I had a ten-speed. I was sure that with the right gear selection I would be able to out-ride my six-year-old son.

The race started in the traditional way. We were lined up, along with Andrew, at one end of the car park. Janine was sitting by the car, reading a magazine. For a change, it wasn’t a horse magazine; it was something much worse. I hadn’t realised when I got her the subscription for the country home magazine that it would contain so many expensive items that she would fall in love with. Since we were planning to put an extension onto our home so the boys could have their own rooms, she was busy getting lots of ideas on what to put into the extension.

“Ready, set...” Colin called out, and then started pedalling.

“Go!” he yelled when he was a couple of metres away. As I said, the race started in the traditional way.

I’d already put my bike into fourth gear. I started to chase my eldest boy. Andrew was grinning happily as he rode the new bike he got for his birthday. He wasn’t really interesting in winning, just in having fun with his brother and dad.

Colin was out of the saddle and pedalling furiously. Being too big and unfit to do the same, I stay seated and just pushed my legs as fast as they could go.

Three-quarters of the way down the carpark, I passed Colin who grinned happily at me as he tried to keep up. I was smiling when I got to the far end first.

They say that pride comes before the fall. Whoever ‘they’ are, they are correct. I was going too fast to turn my bike around, and I was too proud to use the brakes to slow down to a safe speed. The result was an educational experience of Newton’s First Law of Motion, where the loss of dynamic stability of the turning bike required the transformation from an upright two-wheeled mode of transport to a horizontal sliding movement in the original direction of travel.

In other words, I crashed.

Colin and Andrew, being the loving sons that they are, laughed at me, and kept racing.

“I’m winning!” Colin cried out as he headed back to the other end and the finish line. Andrew waved as he rode past.

Painfully, I picked myself up. My bike seemed fine, or at least a lot better than I was feeling. I’d managed to remove the skin along about a quarter of my left forearm, and I had a very sore hip. Wearing jeans was probably the only thing that prevent a similar loss of skin from that part of my body.

I slowly walked the bike back to the car. Janine, the lovely wife, was still reading her magazine. She hadn’t noticed a thing.

“I think it’s time to go,” I said. “I just need to wash my arm first.”

She looked up and saw me standing there, gingerly holding the damaged limb up. An almost sadistic gleam appeared in her eye.

“You poor thing! I’ll get the first aid kit out. What happened?”

“Colin and I were having a race, and I crashed.”

“You must be in agony. Wait there and I’ll get a bandage for it,” she said. She got out the first aid kit we’d bought the from the Ambulance Service of Victoria, and started looking through it. I’m sure she was trying to think of a reason to perform an amputation, but was failing.

Colin rode up at that point.

“I won, Daddy!”

“Yes, Colin,” I said. “You won the race.”

Colin: 1
Dad: 0

* * *

It was a Saturday morning and we were driving the boys to their swimming lesson.

“I was thinking we should switch the boys lessons to a weeknight,” Janine said.

“I was thinking we should switch the boys lessons to a weeknight,” Colin echoed from the back seat.

I glanced back to see him grinning at me, before I turned my attention back to my wife.

“Any particular reason?” I asked.

“Any particular reason?” Colin echoed.

“I think they are getting to the stage where they’ll want to do other things, and most of those things are on Saturdays,” Janine said.

“And most of those things are on Saturdays,” Colin echoed.

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Fair enough,” Colin echoed.

“I’m copying you,” Colin said, obviously thinking his parents hadn’t already worked that out.

“Really?” I asked him.

“Really?” he echoed.

“Are you copying me?” I asked.

“Are you copying me?” he echoed.

I smiled to myself. I decided to see how far he would go.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ,” I said.

“Super...cada...”

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ,” I repeated.

“Super...freta...docious!”

“You’re being mean,” Janine said.

“You’re being mean,” Colin repeated.

“Okay, then. How about antidisestablishmentarianism?” I asked.

“Anti...dis...anism.”

“Try paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde.”

There was silence for a couple of seconds.

“I’m not copying Daddy anymore.”

I grinned. Admittedly, I had to use one completely made up word, the longest word in the English dictionary, and an archaic chemical formula, but I won. The joy in proving that I had a better vocabulary than a six-year-old was unbelievable.

Colin: 1
Dad: 1

* * *

“Mummy, Daddy, have I eaten more than you?” Colin asked at the dinner table.

“Yes, Colin, you have,” Janine said. She was pleased, because for a long time Colin hadn’t had much of an appetite.

I looked down at my protruding stomach. While I could try to eat more than him, it wouldn’t be a good idea. I had to concede.

Colin: 2
Dad: 1

It’s just as well that I’m not competitive.