Panda to your Every Desire (2 page)

A READER now living in South Carolina couldn’t wait to tell us that his daughter’s new English teacher is named Paige Turner.

WE HAVE long been admirers of Australian plain speaking. A report in
The Herald
about allowing tattooing in Scottish prisons referred to previous Australian research. A member of the Scottish Prison Service tells us: “Our study is called ‘Tattooing in Scottish Prisons: A health care needs assessment’.

“The Australian university research published in the
Australian Health Review
was entitled ‘Jaggers in the Pokey’.”

WE HAVE made fun of Americans visiting Scotland, and now a reader living in the United States returns the compliment by sending us a cutting from a Texan newspaper which states: “A dying Scotsman on his death bed looked up and asked if his wife was there. ‘Yes, dear, I’m right next to you,’ she replied. ‘Are my children here?’ he asked. ‘Yes, daddy, we’re all here,’ they said.

“‘Then why the heck is the light on in the kitchen?’ he asked.”

A GLASGOW student spent the summer working at a wildlife park in Canada. He had to tell owners of soft-topped cars that they couldn’t drive through the park in case the bears tore at the roof.

“How about if I just put the top down?” one woman asked him.

NOT THAT we are making any inferences about Americans and their IQs, but reader Stephen Gold was in the Museum of Modern Art in New York where one of the exhibition spaces had a sign stating: “Sponsored by Banana Republic”.

A woman who had been reading it with a quizzical expression turned and asked her husband: “Harry, do you think this is the fashion store or the country?”

A UNITED STATES member on a Land Rover owners’ discussion group told the old gag of the Grand Canyon being started by a Scot digging for a dropped penny. By the end of the discussion, the Americans had decided that all Scottish inventions were inspired by a desire to save money:

Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone to save on bus fares visiting people. John Logie Baird invented the TV to save buying cinema tickets. Sir Robert Watson-Watt developed radar so that the authorities could make money fining speeding motorists. Alexander Bain invented the fax machine to save on postage.

And our favourite: Sir James Dewar invented the vacuum flask to save buying his coffee from Starbucks.

Scots love their children – no matter what they might tell their friends about them. As one cynical mother put it: “I wanted to have children while my parents were still young enough to look after them.”

Here are some of the little darlings’ stories.

PROOF that our children grow up too quickly comes from reader Stephen Macleod who was chatting to a Kilmarnock minister who visited a local primary school during the bad weather. With snow still on the ground, one of the primary seven sidled up to the minister and asked: “Do you think the snow will affect the going at Cheltenham?”

A READER visiting a council swimming pool watched as the chap in front paid for himself and his older child, but said the younger one was only three, which meant she could get in for free.

As the girl seemed quite tall for this age, the chap behind the counter asked when she would be four, the age at which a ticket had to be bought.

“When the recession’s over,” her dad replied.

TALES of upbraiding children remind Gordon Walker of being in a newsagents under the Hielanman’s Umbrella in Argyle Street when a wee Glesga wummin with a toddler and a five-year-old boy was fishing in her purse for change.

Her son, staring at a lad’s mag, asked: “How come that lady’s boobs are bigger than yours?”

Gordon tells us: “The mother, without missing a beat, responded, ‘Because you ate mine, son.”’

JOHN SWORD at Glasgow’s meat market tells us of a friend’s young son keenly watching a neighbour who had called in for a cup of tea. His staring made her feel uncomfortable until she finally asked the lad what he was looking at.

He then explained: “My parents say you drink like a fish.”

A BEARSDEN reader tells us their twenty-something son has moved back in with them as he says it will give him the opportunity to save up for the deposit on a flat.

She now thinks he will be there for a while after tidying up his bed-room and coming across a large glass jar full of coins with the label “flat deposit” taped to it.

A JORDANHILL reader says he and his wife were delighted with a new baby-sitter who told them when they returned from a night out that she had got all three of their children to go to bed by 9pm.

They told her that was very impressive as they could never manage that themselves on a non-school night, and asked what her secret was.

“Simple,” she told them. “I put the clock on your mantelpiece forward by two hours.”

A CLYDEBANK reader took his eight-year-old son for his first game of golf. When the two of them got held up by a four-ball in front, his son asked what a four-ball was. His father explained it was four players playing together, which can slow things down.

As they waited, two chaps playing the hole behind them caught up, and asked what the hold-up was. “There are four men over there,” explained his young son, “having four-play.”

Says our reader: “Have to wait a few years to explain why he caused such hilarity.”

MAW ONE and Maw Two, overheard on a Glasgow bus.

One says her son is getting too much of “that healthy fruit” at school. Maw Two asks, why are you complaining?

Because, comes the answer, when her boy gets home from school for dinner, he’s so full of fruit that he “cannae finish his chips”.

YOU NEVER know what you are going to hear when you ask the audience at an Edinburgh Fringe show a question.

Compere Billy Kirkwood at the kids’ comedy show
Toybox
at The Stand, asked one youngster where he was from and what it was like. The boy, who was about eight, replied: “I’m from Aberdour.” He then added, with a shake of his young head: “Frankly, the village isn’t what it used to be.”

A READER at Clydebank’s shopping centre witnessed the latest debate on healthy eating. A young girl asked her mum: “Why do vegetables taste horrible?” Her harassed mother told her: “Sometimes things that taste horrible are good for you.”

“Like Auntie Anne-Marie’s cooking?” was the devastating riposte from the young girl.

“I DIDN’T want my son to become a juggler,” said the chap in the pub the other night. “It’s frightening how many of them end up on the street.”

MIKE RITCHIE tells us of a female friend, a long-suffering mum to three kids between the ages of nine and fifteen.

She’s given up trying to communicate with them. She stands at the foot of the stairs and shrieks at them until she becomes hoarse, yet still they ignore her.

The solution? “The easiest way is just to ring their mobiles – they answer those quickly enough.”

AN EDINBURGH mother tells us: “Now I know why it was worth-while teaching my little son what slots the round, square and triangle blocks of wood went in his Early Learning Centre toy.

“Ten years later, when I couldn’t set up my computer along with the printer and broadband, he was able to take all the oddly shaped ends of wires and work out where they fitted.”

A READER in a Glasgow fast-food restaurant was disturbed by a little lad yelling at his mother: “You don’t know what I want! You don’t know what I want!”

The boy’s mother looked down and calmly replied: “Darren, you’re only four. You don’t even know what you want.”

A READER felt sorry for the mother taking her young children into Glasgow by bus during the school holidays who passed the time by starting a rhyming game.

“I’ll go first,” she said. “Cat.”

“Mat,” replied one child.

“Your turn,” said the mum.

“Gorilla,” said the other child, and our reader watched as the mother’s face frowned in speechlessness.

READER Robert Gardner tells us that his grandson had swallowed a five pence piece, and the medical advice was that it could take up to three days for it to reappear. However, the boy’s mum texted Robert to say it was retrieved just the next day.

“Just like his dad,” Robert texted back. “He couldn’t hold on to money for long either.”

NOT EVERY young worker is aware of the needs of mothers, it seems. A reader was in a Glasgow city-centre coffee shop when the woman in front of him in the queue carrying a baby in her arms, asked if they had a high chair.

The young chap serving her furrowed his brow before finally replying: “I think the ones by the front window are pretty high.”

LYNDA NICOLSON tells us: “The other night my four-year-old niece asked, ‘For a treat, do you have anything for me to eat that isn’t good for me?”’

A TEACHER says one of her young charges excitedly told her that her mum had given birth to twins. Chatting about them, the teacher asked who they looked like. “Each other,” said the confused youngster.

CHILDREN are getting more precocious, it seems. Kate Woods tells us about a friend’s granddaughter who was asked by granny what her first day at nursery was like.

“Good,” the little one replied. “I’m the prettiest girl in the class.”

“Who said that?” asked granny.

“No-one,” she said. “I just looked at all the others.”

SOME newspaper headlines from the world of sport remind Frank de Pellett of the line about the wee boy telling his aunt: “When I grow up, I want tae be a fitba’ player.”

“Don’t be daft,” she replied. “Ye cannae dae both.”

SCOTLAND’S heavy snow brought out some neighbourly camaraderie, with folk checking on the elderly nearby. It reminded one reader of the classic – i.e. old – story of the housewife wanting to check on the pensioner next door.

She sent her eight-year-old son “to see how old Mrs McLeod is”. He returned to say that Mrs McLeod said her age was none of her business.

“WE WERE having a family argument when my daughter said she had nothing in common with the rest of us, and asked if she was adopted,” said the chap in the pub.

“So I told her she was – but that it didn’t work out and the other family brought her back.”

A STORY about Radio 4 reminds a fan of the station in Bearsden of taking his teenage daughter out for a driving lesson in his car. Thinking that she should adjust the mirror before driving off, he asked her: “What’s the first thing you should do?”

“Change the radio station,” she replied.

JEFF MILLER at Hampden Cars picked up a dental nurse who told him about her boss being perplexed by a young child who faithfully brushed her teeth twice a day, but was still having a lot of decay.

Further investigation by the dentist uncovered the fact that the child didn’t like the taste of minty toothpaste, so her mother allowed her to use sugary cola afterwards as a mouthwash.

ZUMBA, the latest fitness craze using energetic South American dancing, is not known by everyone.

An Ayrshire mother tells us about her daughter telling her papa that she had to leave early to go to Zumba with her pal. The auld fella told her it was one of Michael Caine’s best films – but wasn’t it a bit gory for two young girls?

JIM NICOL in Lenzie tells us of a friend’s seven-year-old son wanting to help his dad with the
Evening Times
crossword. The dad had mixed emotions when the lad looked at the clue “Raining heavily” which began with P, ending in “ing” and suggested “pissing”, rather than the expected answer “pouring”, as at least it fitted. But where did he learn such language?

A YOUNG mum was overheard telling her friends on the Glasgow to Edinburgh train: “I caught my husband staring at our son in his cot with an obvious look of pride and affection on his face.

“He then spoiled it all by saying, ‘I can’t believe we got such a good cot for under a hundred quid.”’

A READER at a play park heard a father shout at his young son, who was keeping the toys to himself: “Sonny! Share! Sonny! Share!” Inevitably, one of the other parents started singing: “I got you babe.”

Employment in Scotland has gone from shipyards to call centres. But thankfully the humour still remains.