Knowing your place in the pecking order
Why is the man of the household referred to as the "head of the family"? OK, that's a little old fashioned, but there is compelling evidence that this is history.
The evidence in our house was presented to me on Tuesday night. Not only did it suggest I wasn't on the top spot, not that I ever thought I was, but explicitly stated I was right at the bottom of the rankings I never knew existed.
How to make a short story long:-
Coming home on Tuesday night, having left the office in fine weather (fine for this summer, that's for sure) we came through some low-lying cloud and into what had been some heavy rain. Heading to the nursery it was light drizzle, but had clealry been heavy earlier on, with the amount of water on the roads. Oh great, we've missed it.
Pulling up onto the drive, the timing was perfectly bad. Just as the car came to a halt the heavy rain returned. We decided to wait a minute or two to see how it panned out, but realising it was set for a while I did something that most who know me will be shocked by. I offered to be a gentleman and run to the house to grab a brolly to hold so my wife could get out of the car half dry. The fact I did it for my boy was neither here nor there.
With the decision to bolt for it made I opened the car door. An certain amount of water had collected by the door seal which suddenly found itself liberated from its gravity-blocked state and did the inevitable. It fell straight down onto the arm that was being used to push the door open. My arm.
An expletive suitable to the situation rang out as the door was firmly closed again. The next sound was the sound of humility. The boy was sat in the back giggling at his Dad's misfortune.
Was I anything but proud of this? Oh no. The giggling is infectious. The pair of us up front laughed too. This was a "passive" giggle rather than an "active" giggle (active = taking part in some activity, eg funny faces, tickling - passive = being observant but not activley involved in a situation).
Laughing at his Dad's misfortune. There we have it, the put-down. The evidence that I am indeed the bottom of the household, not the head.
