#NaughtyBoysDon’tGetMaccies

I reckon every child has that one life-defining moment in their childhood that shapes the rest of their lives. A moment of realisation; of awareness; of clarity. 

A moment similar to the one experienced by Kray 2 when the overwhelming negative of having a mother with the eyes and ears of a secondary school teacher dawned on him. A moment where he learned that it’s really not a good idea to get on my tits. Hell hath no fury like a stressed Mummy scorned. Or something like that.

Let me elaborate.

It was a very testing Saturday morning in December 2017. It was snowing, freezing cold, the notoriously temperamental boiler hadn’t graced us with its presence and I had thirty-four English books to mark. And the Krays were in fine form. Things were not looking good. And remember, this was their pre-Xbox era. Bad times.

Time for hard ball. 

‘If you’re really good for Mummy, we’ll go and get a McDonalds for dinner,’ I bribed. Unashamedly.

So, bless them, once I had dangled that particular M-shaped carrot in front of their little noses, they spent the next two hours being overly nice to me while courageously battling their inner natural instincts to garrott each other and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each potential Happy Meal option. I was winning.

12.30 pm and we were on our way. Life was good. Mummy had marked 14 books, the British Gas man had arrived and thankfully cajoled the boiler into some sort of heating action and the Krays were basking in the similarly warm, expectant glow that only the anticipation of copious amounts of ketchup and fries can bring.

A rare moment of inner peace and tranquillity descended while we all contemplated the boundless joy that was to come. For the boys, filling their faces with their well-earned crap. For me, the blissful ten minutes silence while they filled them.

As expected, this calm and serene moment was not to last. 

Crack.

The noise reverberated around the car like a backfiring engine. Or one of those popping, crackling exhausts spotty-faced, teenage nobs have on their cars. I peeked apprehensively in the rearview mirror and considered which particular Kray was most likely to have delivered the impressive blow. I didn’t have to wait long. Already the clear red outline of the slightly more diminutive (although no less stingy) three-year-old’s hand on my four-year-old’s cheek was beginning to announce itself. And what an absolute belter it was.

To cut a long story short, Kray 1 had called Kray 2 a ‘lady’ (one of their most favourite insults at the time) and Kray 2 had responded in kind with his preferred method of payback. Kray 2 then received a Grade A Mummy bollocking and was told in no uncertain terms that while I was absolutely sure that somewhere along the line Kray 1 probably did something to deserve it (as was usually the case), that was just not ok and if either one of the little sods even vaguely breathed in mine or each others’ direction for the rest of the journey, it would be ‘au revoir’ to their Mozzarella Melts.

Silence.

We were nineteen seconds away from McDonalds.

It was a shame really; I had only glanced fleetingly in the rearview mirror between the ‘Paying’ and ‘Collecting’ windows to see whether I had tossed the wipes into the back of the car. Probably only about six seconds of car crawl…but it proved to be just enough.

Kray 2 went for the eye gouge; his finishing move. A risky one, considering the amount of reach, stretch and extension this particular motion required, but in his naive, infantile and slightly over-confident judgement, he clearly felt it was worth the risk.

He missed by a millimetre.

Time stood still. 

I observed interestingly as Kray 1 then made his split-second decision. Did he scream like a banshee, cry me a river and grass his little brother up, risking the loss of my already-on-a-knife-edge parental shit and going home empty-handed? Or did he keep his mouth shut, swallow his pride and romp over the finishing line with the good stuff?

It was the latter.

Kray 1’s Maccies game is strong. He knew if he made a fuss there was every chance I would blame the wrong Kray and he would end up sans burger. There was no way he was risking that. So he braved it out.. like an absolute legend.

I watched Kray 2 slide back into his seat with a satisfied smirk as he celebrated his points victory. But, as they say, don’t count your chicken nuggets before they’re in your mouth.

‘Hi. Two happy meals…?’ She began to pass them through the window.

‘No, just one now, thank you,.’ I responded.

‘Are you sure?’ 

‘100% thanks. I’ll only be needing one now, thank you. Give it to the car behind me would you please?’ 

She looked slightly bemused but as I was clearly wearing my ‘Don’t F**k With Me’ Mummy mask, she simply smiled, nodded and slid the window shut.

We drove home, set out the table and Kray 1 unpacked his well-earned Happy Meal and gleefully described every moment of his unadulterated food ecstasy. In verbal HD.

Kray 2 meanwhile, with a clenched fist and forlorn stare, contemplated his grave error as the plainest ham-sandwich-on-brown-bread-with-no-crisps he had ever laid eyes on in his short little life sat limply in front of him. And I caught the moment in a one-shot wonder.

The life-defining lesson learned that day?

#naughtyboysdontgetmaccies