Colm O'Regan: No imagination allowed, I warn my kids - imagination is literally my other job

Comedian and Irish Examiner columnist Colm O'Regan pictured in Cork. Pic: Denis Minihane.

There are some classic TV drama lines that crop up often.

“I THOUGHT I’d find you here.”

“It’s not what you think it is.”

“I was wrong to ever have trusted you.”

“I bet you’re LOVING this aren’t you?”

My favourite one is “DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF?”

Eastenders, Coronation Street, Breaking Bad. At some point, a character will remind the protagonist just how much they have changed. I say it to myself all the time since becoming a parent. The sentences I find coming out of my mouth. 

“What happened to me?”

“For the LAST time, we do not play with the bicycle pump in the kitchen.”

“There’s only one Daddy in this family. I don’t need three.”

“THAT’S NOT MY SMELL I THINK SOMEONE ELSE DIDN’T FLUSH THE TOILET?”

“Do you fart like that in school?”

Just a litany of sentences that look like they were generated by a cranky AI. 

I hate giving out about farts. Some of the ones these days are works of acoustic art. I should be applauding. Giving her a certificate. Inducting her into the hall of fame. Asking for tips on how to make such an amazing noise. 

Farts are simply funny. And here I am like some stuffed shirt, dead-inside, repressed out of touch, brown-suited headmaster telling this cherub she can’t continue to perform beautiful music.

Then there’s the post-nagging. The sort of bleating. Where you’ve lost the argument about what coat to bring and you’re just reduced to sniping at the end. 

“But of course, if you DO get a cold it’s ME is the one who’s going to be looking after you.” 

They get it though. They understand the fundamental weakness of that argument. “But Daddy that’s your job to look after us.”

“Yeah it is my job but one day it won’t be my job, and you won’t have me to tell you and…”

I don’t even know what my point is. So now I’m just reduced to quibbling about the finer points of the job contract. 

Like that one person in the office who is always grumbling about the state of the kitchen. They have a valid point but no one cares about teabags in the sink. 

The same for me. I know I’m in the right about the coat. They do not have an adequate coat and viruses are always on the lookout. 

If they weren’t seven and six, you could say they were gaslighting. But they’re not allowed to find out about gaslighting until they are 10 at least.

The latest episode of Who Even Am I Right Now? was last week. 

We were all tidying. Tidying consists of adults grumbling and rage-sorting while oblivious little darlings throw shapes at putting things away. 

I had just scraped the fourth apple sticker off the ground when I turned around and there they were, not tidying. 

“What are you DOING? Just. Put. Away. The. TOYS. Where are you going with that string?”

“We’re pretending that the toys are escaping from a monster across a gorge and they have to go on a zip wire to get away and the toybox is the safe place.” 

They gaze up at me with those hopeful eyes not yet dulled by experience and the world letting them down. But I’m having none of it.

“Can you just put away the toys by picking them up and placing them in the box?”

“But you said it’s good to use your imagination.”

“Look we need to just tidy, okay? I don’t want any games, any imagination. Just do the job. No imagination.”

No imagination. Imagination is literally my other job. 

DO I HEAR MYSELF?