My daddy's better than your daddy...

Remember sitting down with your peanut butter sandwich at lunch and listening to some hot-shot 8 year old tell you that their dad is currently flying his own private plane over the Maldives with all the Spice Girls? And then that funny little child mind of yours decides that it is necessary to turn this into a competition. So, you outshine hot-shot child with a riveting tale of your father living in the biggest house in New York with 80 maids and has parties every night with up and coming bands that are so much cooler than the aforementioned Spice Girls...

I was very happy moving into my teens and the embellishment could be toned down to a believable level. Except as I move into the adult world these crazy, dramatic competitive spiels have come back! This time however, it's not about your daddy but about your baby...

Maybe you have to have kids to fully understand this attempt to out-do each other, but i just do not get it. The most recent trend is about the intelligence of your child. I had a lady come into the store the other day with her son. Her son was about 8 years old and she was buying him an awful lot of stationery considering HES EIGHT! I have a sneaking suspicion she noticed the look of shock that came over my face as she piled $300 worth of books and pens onto the counter for her small child. She looked at me and with a glimmer of challenge in her eye said "He's intellectually gifted and has just been accepted into the Opportunity Class program." And this is when it all begins. Being oblivious to the challenge i replied "Oh, I was in a class similar to that..."

Little did I know that I had now declared warfare on her child.

"Ah, probably not" she replied "It's only available at his school, which is a boys only primary school by the way. It took months of character tests and examinations. He's highly accelerated and thus needs to be prepared from a rigorous study schedule".

A study schedule? In fact, a rigorous one. He's in primary school! Where they still colour things in! I remember being eight and a book report would involve making a diorama out of an old shoe box and some badly placed cellophane.

Having finally cottoned on to exactly what kind of conversation we were having I intelligently backed off for fear this would escalate into a hair pulling, lady on lady battle. I escaped unharmed, however some are not so lucky.

Many a time I have seen one women mention the mental prowess of her child to another and a battle ensues not dissimilar to the war of attrition. Problem is no one wins. Everyone leaves with a bruised ego and bewildered child.

So, if you think your child is the second coming of Jesus, with the mind of Einstein, leadership qualities of Churchill and sporting prowess rivaling Usain Bolt, keep it to yourself.

Tax

As a child I had absolutely no idea what tax was. But I do remember my grandmother saying; "There are three things in life that are guaranteed: birth, death and taxes." I didn't realised however that what is also guaranteed is people whinging about taxes.

Every single person who is earning a living appears to hate taxes. They despise taxes as if it is someone personally steals a couple hundred from their bank account every fortnight. Now this whinging I can tolerate to a certain extent. As I now earn my own living I know how annoying it is to desperately sneak out the calculator mid shift to figure out what the next pay check will come in at, and then when it does it's not as much as I actually earned. Annoying. Agreed.

However, as I start to socialise with more and more adults I have found a brand new strain of taxation whinging. People whinging about how their tax is being spent. Oh dear God people, give it a rest. At least idle chit chat about the weather is slightly more invigorating. According to them their money has been stolen and now they want to decide how its been spent. If their tax is not being spent on something that benefits them it is a "total waste of taxpayer dollars" (insert exasperated tone). If it happens to be a freeway right on their way to work it is instead a comment of "Finally something useful has been done with my hard earned money".

All I have to say is that it confuses me to tears. We all know we have to pay tax and we all know that it gets used and we have absolutely no say about where it goes or what it pays for. So stop worrying. Seriously, give that scary, bulging vein in your head a rest.

Besides, you get some back in at end of financial year.