Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A New Low

I have not posted here for a month and a half which is a new low for me. I could say it's because I have been busy. As a matter of fact, I have been quite busy: I moved house, I started a campaign to ban purple boat shoes from the streets of Potts Point, I spent a lot of time thinking about dimmable lights, and I have also started writing my memoirs*. But to be honest all that has been make-work to avoid the fact that I saw something which left me deeply traumatised and unable to concentrate on simple, everyday tasks. As part of my therapy I will relate the vision here:

A family stepped onto the footpath from a hotel foyer. The young girl (aged about 10) was wearing a sexy Mrs Santa negligee - red dress with fluffy white ruffles at the hem. She had a headband from which two giant candy canes protruded like antlers or - if you prefer hen's night type imagery - like red and white striped droopy penises. Her mother was wearing exactly the same dress in exactly the same size. And just to clarify, the mother was NOT the same size as her young daughter. Nowhere near. There was back cleavage.

At first I thought the two young boys (maybe 8 or so. Definitely old enough to have some agency in the way of sartorial choice) were just in mildly humiliating red and green combination clothes but it soon became apparent that they were dressed as elves with jaunty zig zag hems on their tops. I can't quite remember whether or not there were bells involved. I can see you thinking that the Mrs Santa disaster sounds a lot worse than the elf thing, and that is what I though too, until one of the boys moved so that I could see, written in large letters on his bottom "Santa's Little Helper". I have thought long and hard about phrases stamped on a small child's rear end, and concluded that there is only one phrase that could possibly surpass this one in hideous wrongness: "Santa's Little Helping". Actually, I only thought about it for a minute or so. I'm sure that the next time there is a blackout or a long car trip where the cd player is broken an excellent way to pass the time would be to think up phrases to have printed on the pants of your young children in order to scar them for life. Please keep me up to date with your suggestions!




*I haven't really got past the title yet, but it is going to be called "A ......" I'm still fleshing out the final details.