A young boy of about seven or eight was sitting opposite me on the tube this afternoon with his mum and dad. I like kids and I enjoy making them laugh and for some reason youngsters find me amusing (in fact after a mini-run earlier in the day, a teenage girl laughed openly at me in the street. I couldn't work out why, but then I remembered I was still wearing my training alice band, so that might have been it).
So I did my usual face-pulling schtick, but the boy just looked at me with a look of superiority on his face, as if to say "Do you really think that a funny face is enough to make me laugh? I pity you, old man."
I gave up trying. If only he knew who I was. Nearly fifty people in Carlisle had been prepared to pay over ten pounds each to see what he was turning his nose up at for free.
But his haughtiness wasn't reserved just for me. I observed the family for the next few minutes. He treated his mother and father with the same cold contempt and it was obvious who was the dominant person in this triumverate. He was watching his dad play a video game on his phone, and it was the child who was patronising the father, telling him that he was getting good, but also at one point inexplicably (but correctly) calling him fat. There was no come-back. No reproach.
The boy had been chewing something, but now he leant forward and in full view of his mother and father he spat it on the floor of the carriage. It was some bright pink bubble gum. His mother obviously noticed this, as she tutted and seemed to make some tiny comment to herself, but otherwise this act of mindless vandalism from the humourless (or is it that he just had a good sense of humour?) child went unchastised.
I was surprised by this. Surely parents should be teaching their kids that it is bad manners to dispose of gum in a place where it is extremely likely to be stepped in by someone else. It could have ended up on their shoe and then got trodden into some carpet somewhere or even on their clothing. It was really horrible. I waited for them to at least bend down with a hankie and pick up the offending article, but they all tried to pretend it hadn't happened.
It was selfish behaviour that would have made Caligula or even Simon Streeting blush and I wondered, looking at the emotionless child if he was possibly some kind of Midwitch Cuckoo spawn, who his parents couldn't criticise for fear of his awesome retribution. That would explain why he hadn't found me hilarious and reinstate me as one of the UK's top face-pullers. I hoped that was the case.
I thought about saying something to the parents about this rudeness, but people hate to have the limitations of their nurturing skills pointed out, and, you know, what if he was a Midwitch Cuckoo? He'd have me throwing myself in front of the next train, with an arrogant smirk on his face. And even I am not prepared to go that far in search of a laugh.
Pleasingly, when the family got off the train a few minutes later, the child had had time to forget all about the gum and he stepped in it himself. With ultimate justice it attached itself firmly to the sole of his shoe. I thought about warning his parents - I hated to think of that gum being trodden into their own carpets when they got home - but I had decided not to interfere once and it would be hypocritical for me to do so now.
Is it wrong to take pleasure at the misfortunes of a child, especially when the main reason that you're glad is because he blanked you when you were trying to be facially witty?
It was only later that I realised that the boy had probably done it on purpose. After all it wouldn't be his own carpets that he would be ruining. It would be another slight to his poor, terrified parents, who were clearly unable to ever tell him off for fear of the consequences.
That's the only way I can make any sense of their actions anyway.
