on Tuesday morning—”
“Dr. Drax…the Rocket…What kind of ride is it? Is it a reverse bungee? Or a roller coaster? Or—”
“Wait and see. That’s one of the ways in which you can exercise your patience. Now tell me a little bit about the child you’ll be bringing….”
I’d completely forgotten that dads have children.
“…I do hope it’s a girl. We’re very short on girls.”
“Oh. She’s a girl then. Definitely. Anything you say.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Your daughter, Mr. Digby.”
“My daughter?” Time to Engage. I said the name of the only daughter I’d ever had. I said, “It’s Florida. Her name is Florida.”
If Liverpool city center was Level Two, a secret location in China must be Level Fifty at least. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. This time I was going to skill up before leveling up. In World of Warcraft you can have weapon skills, gathering skills or trade skills. You can have mining skills too, but they’re a bit rubbish and you have to buy a pickax.
If I was going on a quest disguised as Florida’s dad, I would need dad skills.
I went through all the books on my dad’s bedside table. They were mostly color charts of quick-drying low-odor bathroom paints with mad names like Antarctic Glow, but there was one called Talk to Your Teen , which was all about how to trick your teenage son or daughter into talking to you.
Un.
Be.
Liev.
Able.
It was like finding the cheat sheet for Orbiter IV. Except it wasn’t Orbiter IV; it was My Life. Look at this:
Does your teen sometimes seem sulky and uncommunicative? Meals are the most natural place for conversation to flow. To create the best possible conditions for this, you should turn off the television before eating and try to serve fiddly food. Fiddly food keeps everyone at the table longer. Whereas a pizza can be dispensed with in a matter of minutes, a plate of spaghetti can keep a hungry teen at the table for fully half an hour.
In other words, meals are traps. Except what sane person would bait a trap with pasta?
It also said:
It’s very important to show an interest in their world. Ask them about their friends, their music, their books and their computer games.
So he was never interested in the history of Azeroth or the Wanderlust Warriors’ weapons at all! He was just keeping me talking.
I should’ve realized this before, because when I carefully monitored my dad’s conversations for several days, Idiscovered that they can all be broken down into five headings, namely:
How we got there.
What the parking was like.
What it was like in the old days.
Something thoughtful which it made you think.
Something to do with last night’s soccer.
For instance, on the Saturday morning we went to the New Strand to look for new handles to put on the new kitchen cupboards. We didn’t find any (though we did get an amusing cactus holder, shaped like a donkey). This is what Dad said:
The main road was so choked, we’d’ve been better off walking.
Two pounds to park for two hours! And it takes you half an hour to find a space.
In the old days, if the shop didn’t have the right door handles for your cupboards you came home empty-handed. Nowadays, with shopping malls and what have you, if they haven’t got door handles, you buy a cactus holder. It makes you think…
…are we really any happier now than we were then? Are we happier because we’ve got a cactus holder? It’s not like we’ve got a cactus.
It’s no good scoring lots of goals if you also concede lots of goals. We need a terrifying central defender.
These five headings apply to anything. For instance, if my dad ever did go to Azeroth, he’d probably say:
We took the Deeprun Tram to Stormwind (Dwarven District).
The tram is free. It’s very reliable and you don’t have to worry about parking. On the other hand, it was raided by the undead Scourge and a lot of us were killed. Luckily my guild companions have
“Dr. Drax…the Rocket…What kind of ride is it? Is it a reverse bungee? Or a roller coaster? Or—”
“Wait and see. That’s one of the ways in which you can exercise your patience. Now tell me a little bit about the child you’ll be bringing….”
I’d completely forgotten that dads have children.
“…I do hope it’s a girl. We’re very short on girls.”
“Oh. She’s a girl then. Definitely. Anything you say.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Your daughter, Mr. Digby.”
“My daughter?” Time to Engage. I said the name of the only daughter I’d ever had. I said, “It’s Florida. Her name is Florida.”
If Liverpool city center was Level Two, a secret location in China must be Level Fifty at least. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. This time I was going to skill up before leveling up. In World of Warcraft you can have weapon skills, gathering skills or trade skills. You can have mining skills too, but they’re a bit rubbish and you have to buy a pickax.
If I was going on a quest disguised as Florida’s dad, I would need dad skills.
I went through all the books on my dad’s bedside table. They were mostly color charts of quick-drying low-odor bathroom paints with mad names like Antarctic Glow, but there was one called Talk to Your Teen , which was all about how to trick your teenage son or daughter into talking to you.
Un.
Be.
Liev.
Able.
It was like finding the cheat sheet for Orbiter IV. Except it wasn’t Orbiter IV; it was My Life. Look at this:
Does your teen sometimes seem sulky and uncommunicative? Meals are the most natural place for conversation to flow. To create the best possible conditions for this, you should turn off the television before eating and try to serve fiddly food. Fiddly food keeps everyone at the table longer. Whereas a pizza can be dispensed with in a matter of minutes, a plate of spaghetti can keep a hungry teen at the table for fully half an hour.
In other words, meals are traps. Except what sane person would bait a trap with pasta?
It also said:
It’s very important to show an interest in their world. Ask them about their friends, their music, their books and their computer games.
So he was never interested in the history of Azeroth or the Wanderlust Warriors’ weapons at all! He was just keeping me talking.
I should’ve realized this before, because when I carefully monitored my dad’s conversations for several days, Idiscovered that they can all be broken down into five headings, namely:
How we got there.
What the parking was like.
What it was like in the old days.
Something thoughtful which it made you think.
Something to do with last night’s soccer.
For instance, on the Saturday morning we went to the New Strand to look for new handles to put on the new kitchen cupboards. We didn’t find any (though we did get an amusing cactus holder, shaped like a donkey). This is what Dad said:
The main road was so choked, we’d’ve been better off walking.
Two pounds to park for two hours! And it takes you half an hour to find a space.
In the old days, if the shop didn’t have the right door handles for your cupboards you came home empty-handed. Nowadays, with shopping malls and what have you, if they haven’t got door handles, you buy a cactus holder. It makes you think…
…are we really any happier now than we were then? Are we happier because we’ve got a cactus holder? It’s not like we’ve got a cactus.
It’s no good scoring lots of goals if you also concede lots of goals. We need a terrifying central defender.
These five headings apply to anything. For instance, if my dad ever did go to Azeroth, he’d probably say:
We took the Deeprun Tram to Stormwind (Dwarven District).
The tram is free. It’s very reliable and you don’t have to worry about parking. On the other hand, it was raided by the undead Scourge and a lot of us were killed. Luckily my guild companions have
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