“No fair that our brains get to tell us what to do,” says Clyde from the back seat. I don’t know how to respond to this: does it mean that the “little voices” inside of Clyde’s head are telling him what to do again, or that, just like those who have been assimilated into the Borg or other fraternities, Clyde now regards the presence of his brain as one more impediment to a good time? Fortunately, I am saved from having to decide by a car passing us in the next lane; a dog in the back seat is enough to change the focus of Clyde’s fairness radar from “evil brain overlords” to “lucky canines”: “No fair that dogs get to hang their heads out of the window.”
I stifle the urge to sigh. We are on our way to buy school supplies, and already I am wondering why I didn’t just do the whole thing online, since all evidence so far points to yet another trip punctuated by Clyde’s petulant complaints about the inequitable way I will be dividing the purchases between him and his older sister, Clementine. I already know that it will not help to point out to him that this is not an example of favoritism; I am just following the class lists their teachers gave me, and the reason that Clementine is getting a ruler (and not him) is because his kindergarten list (as opposed to her 4th grade list) does not specify one. I also know that it will be equally pointless to try and explain to him that this discrepancy is not proof of some global anti-Clyde, anti-kindergarten conspiracy, but rather, in all likelihood, a liability issue ( in kindergartner language, the word for “ruler” is very close to the word for “short little whupping stick”).
At least with issues like rulers and dogs I can attempt to reason with Clyde: what do you do with a statement like “It’s no fair that Clementine got to be born first?”
What I want to know is: where did he get the idea that life was supposed to be fair, anyway? After all: hasn’t he spent his entire life watching his father root for the Arizona Cardinals? If I could, I’d blame it on the fact that he now attends public school (don’t they natter on about fairness or something in the Pledge of Allegiance?), but, given the current status of an average Arizona teacher’s salary, I rather doubt there is much talk of “fairness” in his classroom. And besides, his obsession with equal treatment began long before he ever started school.
The fact is that, as far as Clyde is concerned, nothing is fair: not the chair he has to sit in at dinnertime (Clementine’s is better), not the clothes he has to wear in the morning (cats get to be naked), and not the color of the toothbrush he has to use at night (he wanted blue). It’s gotten to the point that I hardly even notice anymore that all of his sentences start with nofairthat; my ears edit it out the same way they edit out the likes, ums and you knows from teenspeak.
Actually, it’s teenspeak and its temporary nature ( the way it–mostly–disappears with age) that gives me the most hope for a future with no nofairthats. If not, then at least I hope he learns to internalize it like the rest of us; pushing all the shock and anger at the unfairness life deals us into those hard, tight little balls of resentment that simmer in the pits of our stomachs, waiting only for the spark of presidential elections and high school reunions to fire up again. Unless, of course, he turns out to be a Cardinals fan like his Dad–then he gets to live with that feeling for four months out of every year.