Parenting Dichotomies

Someone once told me that there’s often sarcasm in my blog posts. It’s disguised as tongue-in-cheek humor directed at my child. And my response to that is a resounding,” You bet!”. Parenting is hard enough. Blowing off steam in healthy ways makes blogging fairly benign in the scope of things. Apparently wishing to dump your child on someone else’s doorsteps is not polite. Or legal come to think of it.

Anyhoo, I’m quite proud of my child’s love for animals. He’s not a vegan…loves his drumsticks and steaks quite a bit much to do that. But he embraces the animal kingdom with facts, trivia and genuine enthusiasm about all of them. He occasionally goes apeshit when he sees a cockroach. However, he gets all gooey inside when he sees a spitting cobra. That should tell you I have more than enough valid reasons for my snark!

Anyhoo again…this Sunday morning, our animal lover turned on the telly for a quick gander. He wanted to relax before sitting down to study for his upcoming exams. After massive eyerolls and “gag-me-with-spoon” expressions at two people kissing, he finally found a movie that made his heart sing; until it didn’t. It was Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid.

See, I like my quiet time on the weekends. They don’t need to be pin-drop-silence times. The focus is on quiet while I do my crosswords. I also scan People for celeb gossip and occasionally keep an eye on good deals online. Our David Attenborough wannabe starts talking about the errors in the movies and it got a bit taxing. Add a lack of adequate caffeine to the mix and it’s akin to a bomb about to go off at the slightest touch.

So, on and on he went. First he objected to the tiger in the frame saying anacondas and tigers aren’t found in the same ecosystem. When he found out the setting was Borneo, he let the tiger thing slide. However, he objected to the anacondas. They belong in the Amazon basin. Then there was the inclusion of the howler monkeys who don’t belong in Borneo either.

When I ventured that he might be mistaken about the type of monkeys, he gave me the age old parent-patented Look of Disapproval and proceeded to explain why those monkey were howler monkeys and outside their indigenous zones along with the scarlet macaws which are also not seen in the wild outside South America;

By then, the slight pride this mother felt at her offspring’s knowledge dried up faster than a drop of water in Sahara. I packed him off to do some chores around the house. I switched off the TV post haste- the whole catalyst for the unwanted zoology lesson early on a Sunday morning.

I did tell TO that he has a potential career as a fact checker but he should do it all online. Else people are liable to throw things at him if he keeps lecturing at them in that persnickety way. I mean any movie that is building an audience based on snakes is not looking for authenticity and scientific accuracy. They want people squirming, creeped out and dead bodies piling up. They don’t need know-it-alls spoiling their fun. Duh!