Rosinante Quixote
John Howard for Parent of the Year
John was worried. He knew the kids were slipping away from him. Week after week it became more apparent that they were flirting with the idea of going back to their mother.
“Must be tough, mate,” his friends offered.
“Tough!” he exclaimed. “If they go back to her I’ll lose the house and all the child support. It’s a bloody disaster!”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I just don’t know,” sighed John. “I’ve tried scaring them. I’ve told them a thousand times that she won’t be running the show, it’ll be the boyfriend that really calls the shots. The blokes from the office are giving them the same message every time they see them. Its just not getting through.”
“Is the new boyfriend no good?”
“He’s a bloody bludger. It’ll be all holidays and long weekends if he gets hold of them. They can kiss goodbye to their bank balance if he gets his grease-stained paws on the keys to the house. All that effort I put into cashing-in their life insurance policies and paying off their mother’s loans — that’ll all be wasted. They just don’t realise how hard I’ve worked.”
“No doubt. Although the increase in scrap metal prices was a godsend for you wasn’t it?”
“Made no difference at all. The only reason we’re going OK right now is because of my business skills.”
“And the kids must appreciate all you’ve done for them?”
“Nope, the ungrateful little bastards. They love having the extra-pocket money, but they reckon that’s not enough.”
“Unbelievable!”
“Yeah. They just don’t get it. Remember when that disease-ridden little blind orphan started hanging around them? Well, I pissed him off out of it before his free-loading mates joined in, and the bloody kids went crook at me.”
“What?!”
“Yeah! Reckoned they had an obligation to help. I told them up front what happens to your bank balance when you start helping people, but they just don’t get it. And you should have heard them go on and on when I got sprung slipping a few sweeteners to Mad Dog. They reckoned I was supporting organised crime! All I was doing was making a quid. Last time I checked that wasn’t a crime.”
“Where do they get these ideas?”
“Oh, it’s their school. No doubt about it.”
“But I thought you’d fixed that?”
“So did I. But it seems that no matter how matey you are with the principal, he can’t guarantee what the teachers are telling the little brats — crap about ethics and responsibility. Hardly a bloody word about the most important things like profit and tax minimisation.”
“Can you pay the kids to stay?”
“Tried it. Doesn’t work. They stick the money in their pockets and then keep making the same noises.”
“But they must know they’d be worse off with her?”
“They’d be worse off?! What about me? I’ll be ruined.”
“So how are you going to make sure you don’t lose the house ?”
“I dunno. They want me to fix the heater. They even got a report from an electrician which says if we don’t fix it by the end of the week it’ll start a fire and burn the whole town down.”
“Jesus! You better get it fixed.”
“I can’t. Its so bloody expensive that I’d have to sell the car to fix it. I’ll have to get my own electrician to write a different report.”
