Proof 5-Year-Old Kids Are Basically Tiny Dictators
I was sitting on a bench in the park when a man arrived at the bench next to me with enormously heavy backpacks and all sorts of other bags and stuff.
At first I thought he was a poor homeless man who goes around all the benches begging (yeeeah hold on: there’s nothing wrong with that!!! I’m painting a picture here!), but then I noticed that he was actually quite neatly dressed.
And I immediately switched to thinking that maybe he was an artist or painter who had come here to relax for a bit and listen to the trees gossiping with each other about all those weird people who go and sit all by themselves on benches in the middle of a park, only to then sit there looking at poor little animals locked up in enclosures.
But suddenly, out of nowhere, a 4-year-old blonde creature with pigtails comes charging straight at the man who was enjoying his peace and quiet.
She had just been over there harassing the resident goats and had even given them poison, I mean food.
In an ADHD voice, the child, now probably the granddaughter of the not-homeless-or-artist man (although you can’t be entirely sure about that last bit, can you!), yells: I want something to drink!!!
Grandpa isn’t impressed by the little loudmouth, probably because he’s already used to a lot and calmly says: here, have some water.
To which the little monster-in-the-making says very calmly and intelligently: but I’m only allowed lemonade.
Ohhh, says the surprised grandpa, but I’ve only got a carton of drinking yoghurt left for you.
After a slight back-and-forth discussion of but I’m only allowed lemonade and but I only have water or drinking yoghurt for you, the blonde girl, in sheer desperation, snatches that very last crappy little carton of yoghurt out of grandpa’s hands.
Apparently, the irritating grandchild had already quickly forgotten that she was actually only allowed lemonade.
Most likely according to an imaginary mother. Or rather: a mother with the magically imagined words: I’m only allowed lemonade.
So the child leisurely starts slurping or sucking or whatever you want to call it from the carton.
Then, out of nowhere, the five-year-old sister of the slurping blonde girl suddenly comes hurtling over looking completely deranged.
She comes sailing in looking veeeeery pleased with herself and, with confidence like you wouldn’t believe, commands: soooo, now I’d finally like to have my drinking yoghurt.
After grandpa first had to swallow 7 times and nearly twisted his dignified head around 14 times because, for a moment, he no longer knew where he was supposed to look.
Because yes, then there’s also that annoying, normally loudmouthed blogger, sitting next to you on a bench watching the entire emerging drama unfold.
The now somewhat more uncertain grandfather says: Well, yeah, I gave that to your sister.
And bammmmm, there stands the bossy blonde specimen, rooted to the spot, eyes as big as tennis balls.
The hairs on her little child’s body stood on end and you could literally watch the rage growing in real time.
We were just in the supermarket and when I asked if you still needed any drinking yoghurt, neither of you wanted any, the man stammers.
Just to really rub it in with the little ones, he also lets them know that he could have replenished the yoghurt supply and that it’s their own fault they’re now left without any.
Meanwhile, the bawling has escalated into hysterical giga-bawling as if her life depends on it. Stamping her feet, screaming that she DID want that drink carton after all….
While her smaller sister tauntingly dangles the empty drinking-yoghurt carton in front of her face, she gets even angrier and the sirens go off next to me all over again.
By now, the initially sweet-looking blonde girl has transformed into an all-devouring, yoghurt-crazed nuclear screaming machine with demolition tendencies.
Now be nice to each other again, the still not entirely unfazed grandpa stammers. After which another whole speech about supermarkets and drinking yoghurts followed.
Finally, the little brat thankfully shut her big mouth, because by then I was pretty much ready to move to Switzerland.
Until my mother spotted the still slightly crying child and completely wrecked the whole situation all over again by asking: What’s wrong?
Then the child started the whole circus all over again and the terrorising yoghurt monster started stamping her feet and screaming again while the sparrows slowly began dropping dead out of the trees from sheer fright.
That’s when I had to intervene and keep my mother at a safe distance before a permanent escalation broke out in which grandpa, two grandchildren, three goats, 6 geese, a rubbish bin and a carton of drinking yoghurt would leave the park permanently traumatised.
After that, grandpa started telling me the entire story AGAIN, from the very beginning, even though I’d already witnessed the whole movie because I was sitting on the bench next to him and by now knew more about the drinking-yoghurt situation than those idiot sisters did.
With that, I figured the completely derailed drinking-yoghurt children’s conflict, given just that little extra fuel by my mother, had now been discussed more than sufficiently and as far as I was concerned we could move seamlessly on to agenda item two: the current state of affairs within the department of inexplicably scattered objects with no obvious owner.
