After several emphatic requests and several not overly creative evasive techniques I finally sat down this afternoon to play Mario Kart with the Small Child, It’s one of the drawbacks of having an only child – every now and again you get conned into doing things like playing Nintendo even though you don’t enjoy computer games and have many things you’d rather be doing.
So we settle in for some Mario Karting and the Small Child helps me choose ‘a faster car Mum’ and then picks ‘one of the easiest courses for you Mum’ and off we go. I win the first race, he wins the next. Then we move on to the more difficult courses and the Small Child and I seem to be fairly evenly matched. I don’t know how to hurl the shells and things very well and choosing a good driving line is kinda hard because I’m not very good with the controls but we get along okay for a while.
We get onto the fifth or sixth course and the Small Child says to me ‘Mum you’re not taking the shortcuts ‘… shortcuts? what shortcuts? ‘Follow me Mum’. The Small Child then proceeds to go flying past me with ease then spends the next half hour ‘going slow’ so I can keep up! The little guy had been pulling his punches all along and had literally been letting me win a few so I wouldn’t lose interest and refuse to play like his little friends do!
Sheesh! I don’t mind being beaten by a child with many more hours experience at a given task, but being patronized by the Small Child? Well this is a new and interesting development in our relationship. 😐
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