The Impudence of Aging

Stardate: 16th April 2007
Listening to: Happy Ending
Cynicism: 70%

Well, sportsfans, like the last time Todes saw Todes Jnr without the aid of a mirror on a stick, it's been a long time. Sure I've been hovering on the edges of the forums, deftly correcting grammar here, expertly inserting a nugget of literary gold there, but largely I've been off the posting throttle. The Bugatti of Baylsdom has had the "go really fast key" removed and has been idling along in second gear, foot only half down on the loud pedal. Once proud morning stiffies have been only elevating the doona halfway to the ceiling instead of the normal practice of emphatically nailing them through the beams like that guy in F.E.A.R. with the nail gun. Yes, I've been off the boil, and I put it down to a period of self-reflection - a form of navel-gazing of which I like to partake from time to time. Like Michelangelo descending from his scaffold for a bowl of Fasta Pasta, like Francisco de Goya stepping back to admire the canvas, like Monica Lewinsky popping up for a breather, it's been a period of quiet contemplation. "What's brought this on?" I hear you ask in unison, "Is it the tiring burden of parenthood so recently thrust upon you? Is it the sleepless nights, the vomit, the rank odour of newborn faeces, the mentally scarring exposure to the burbling spring of urine that unfailingly eminates from a freshly cleaned baby lying starkers on the change-table?". The answer to all is "Negative!", although being frequently woken in the dead of night by the She_Admiral wearily rising to deal with all of the above has been mentally taxing to me. Thankfully, my mental acuity remained robust enough to engineer a brilliant and equitable solution by installing a single bed in the Boudoir of Baby-Bayls for the She_Admiral to sleep in, saving her the tiring walk down the hall. "Unfair?" you ask. Relax! Simply reversing the baby monitor allows her to still hear my calls for nocturnal snacks of beer and nachos and also affords her the comfort and consistency of my raucous all-night snoring. It's an ingenious solution, and one I'm looking forward to sharing with the other dads at the prenatal class reunion I'm scheduled to attend next week.

Anyway, back to the solemn reflection and the catalyst thereof. Well, the aforementioned BONING has weighed heavy on my mind, not because I'm being denied the 4500 random monosyllabic words of the Fruit Thread, or the stirring pseudo-physics of the "If light bends, is it gay?" discussion but because the reasoning behind it remains as much a mystery as Bono's fly-goggles and Ron Jeremy's existence. Like Splado reaching for anything on the top shelf, the answer remains out of reach, even to my towering cerebrum. Sure I've been banned before, but that was generally for logical reasons, like titling a spam thread about the number 11 "eleven" and not "shfifty-five", or linking to offsite images of plastic dolls. The BONING, was different though. As furious and passionate as a Latino teenager with a Picture magazine, as fearsome in its intensity as a wronged Ewok with a pointy stick, as towering and imposing at the Staypuft Marshmallow Man. Frankly, it had me confused.

In times of confusion, the natural response is to abandon attempts at reasoning and seek immediate gratification in something else, like beer or sexual relations. The taut, brimming seminal recepticle hindering my every attempt at perambulation is a testament to the unavailability of the latter, due I'm told to the "normal" post parenthood period of healing and "adjustment", so beer it was. Thus engaged one fine afternoon at the home of my parental unit, my beer-haze propelled me to seek entertainment in directions never before charted and so it was by accident that I discovered something dusty and forgotten in some dark recess of the shed. It was a tome of gigantic proportions inside a crusty wooden trunk, a volume so large that if books were beer guts, this discovery would have long ago been christened Boony. So, swilling a tankard of its namesake's sponsored ale, I cranked the behemoth's heavy covers open, like that effeminate twonk in The Neverending Story, albeit with more manliness, and less candle-lit attic.

Disappointingly, no luck dragon appeared, but nevertheless, the crusty pages did raise some interest. Apparently the weighty manuscript was a "Family Bible", which were popular in the days before Playstation 3. Big in the days before world wars as well it seems, since this one belonged to my great great grandfather sometime in the 1800's according to the family tree in the back. Apparently this was the place to keep your genealogy records safe from marauding dinosaurs, and so it all was at the back faithfully recorded, at least to the point where apparently everyone forgot about this book. I hastily scrawled "Ensign_Bayls" with a 4-colour Bic, alternating colours to really rub it in to my ancestors how far we'd come since their archaic monochromatic fountain pens, and flicked another page. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" stared back at me, obviously part of the Bible proper. "No chance of that!" I reasoned, visions of the corpulent monument to personality deficit once glimpsed over the side fence, forever indelibly burned onto my unwilling retina. I scanned the page for "Thou shalt not keep small yapping dogs in earshot of thine neighbour" to no avail, obviously lost forever on the missing 3rd granite tablet.

Flicking further, I came upon a treasure trove of loose leafs, and the point of this explanation about my Biblical expoloration. They were all kinds of old documents, including letters to and from my ancestors, said great great grandfather's correspondence chief among them. I vaguely knew he owned land long before it would have been cool to spell it "pwned" and make ghey jokes about heatshotting it, but what else could this old stuff reveal? What links to my heritage could be found? What clues to my character could these faded pages offer?

And then there it was, a scrawling letter from 1892 from my GGGF (Thomas) to D. Harrand, proprietor of the Woodman Hotel. Apparently old Tom had ridden his horse down from the farm for Friday drinks, parked his horse in the car park and then the pub manager had lost the horse. Clearly my ancestors liked to get on the beers, but were sage enough even in those days not to drink and ride, yeehaaaw! Still, it would have been a surprise if I'd have descended from clergy so no real clues there:

Sir
Have you found the horse that I left in your charge on Friday October 21st 1892 and you was not [oh dear] able to deliver on Saturday October 22nd 1892. Trusting that I shall hear from you before I take further proceedings.

Then in 1896 it appears that our old mate Thommo made some innocent and light-hearted remarks to some complete n00b called J.S.Whitfield, who was obviously some kind of town admin or moderator of the time. I looked for evidence that he was good at playing Battlefield Boer or Day of Defeat: Jurassic, but found nothing. Perhaps he was a gramophone DJ or some such, which accounted for his lofty rank. Anyway, it appears that in the Bowhill forums, there was a post made that was deemed offensive, and my great great grandfather was in danger of being banz0red! The text is here:

Sir
Unless you within 7 days from date Apologise in writing to me as to certain statements you made viz. On Dec 29th when you asked me to attend a meeting on the following Sunday (which you failed to call) ? something you stated was damaging to my character. Also on January 5th you having called me a Liar and further stated I had no character ? on both occasions being in or on a public place. Also on January 9th for using Insulting Language to me when on a public Road. Unless an apology in writing is received by me from you on or before noon on Wednesday January 15th 1896 Legal Proceedings will be taken.

Not to be outdone, my astute forebear penned a ban appeal, which appears to be ultimately successful:

Sir
Your communication of the 8th to hand which I suppose is one of your huge jokes. I am quiet [gah] prepared to meet you on terms offered by me on Dec 29 and Jan 5th but on no account will I take impudence from you.

And so there you have it. Far from being a wilful inciter of conflict and rebellion, I'm just the innocent victim of a genetic pre-disposition to perceived smartarsedness, a condition no more in my control or of my chosing than my equine genitalia. I'm just a carbon copy of my placid ancestors, a timeless Marty McFly repelling asinine facsimiles of Biff through the generations, while just trying to get along with everyone. I'm like Bo Duke pursued by the evil Boss Hogg, jumping the ravines of injustice in the General Lee, pulling handbrake turns over the face of inequality and choking idiocy with the acrid tyre-fog of correct grammar, sounding the air-horn of righteousness in the face of persecution while fondly admiring the pertness of cousin Daisy. Rest assured, I'll stoutly soldier on, bereft of Fruit, denied the 80 billion dollars my mining tong script extracted from the bowels of the TEA RPG while I watched TV in another room or read the Sunday Mail in the porcelain sanctity of the little Admiral's room. If nothing else, I would hope above all else that I can do it without misplacing my horse. :-)