TODAY, I'LL BE...

I don’t know if I have told you this story before but my son is at that age where he is sampling various identities. Now, that probably sounds more scientific than it actually is. It works like this. Every morning, he comes into my room and says, “Mummy, today I’m fireman Sam/Bob the Builder/Thomas the Tank Engine/Lazy Lion/the Itsy Bitsy Spider/Ki-pat [rainmaker extraordinaire of the Kapiti Plain]...” That declaration is invariably followed with the question, “Mum, who are you today?” At the pain of death, I am not allowed to be the same person he is so for example, if he is Bob the Builder, I cannot be Bob the Builder too. There are also some default personalities which I am never allowed to be even though that day, he is not being that person. A prime example which anyone who has met him will relate to is, no one is allowed to be Fireman Sam but him. There’s room for only one ladder-climbing, rooftop-rescuing, hero-next-door in town and the position’s been taken. The other thing is that once he has declared who he is, you absolutely MUST call him by that name. Actually, that is not true. You may call him by any other name including his given name. However, if you intend for him to respond, you are well advised to call him by his nom-du-jour. He’s very good at staying in character. Heck, he has even memorised bits of dialogue from his favourite shows which you and he must repeat sometimes ad nauseum, and definitely without error. So for example if he is Thomas the Tank Engine, terse instructions will issue as follows, “Mummy, say ‘who’s that chuckling [sic] down the tracks... It’s Thomas’ and I’ll say ‘choo, choo!’” Of course should I get it wrong, he insists and insists and insists in that way that only children can, until I get it right. All of this has got me thinking. What if we could change our identities? What if, every morning we could get up, declare who we are going to be and insist that everyone around us respond to us as our chosen identity. Now, I can already hear the Hallelujah chorus from the Kings Cole and the Queens Elizabeth characters but really, what if we could. I mean, you know how people treat you in a certain way. Once you had an anger management issue, they always default to, you will always have one. Once you got angry and yelled at someone, now you are treated like the Incredible Hulk. Once you lived a crazy life/fought an addiction drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever, now no one will believe that you are reformed [in fact, they are goading you to go back to ‘normal’ so they can say, “See, we knew it wouldn’t last” in self righteous smugness]... or even shake off some respectable but stifling titles and be someone else – no more Doctor So-and-So, Professor This-and-That, Pastor X, Wife-T-o-Pastor Y. It’s not like you couldn’t change back if you chose to. I am never confused about who my son is when he is not Postman Pat or Ki-pat on the Kapiti Plains. He’s my son. Maybe we should limit the characters you could be to the seven dwarfs a la Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. So you could be Smiley or Grumpy or Happy or Droopy. Okay, I don’t know many of the dwarfs. I figure everyone gets to always be Sexy and Lovely [are those dwarfs?] but in addition you could choose a character and everyone would have to call you that. Wouldn’t that be cool? Even for one day to shake off that old you, be someone new and have everyone recognise only That you? PS for the record, I’m Hot-ty... and Sexy... and Hot Mama-ey [ok, that last one might be stretching the fairy tale a little... but I insist!!]. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY “I do not believe in chance. I think here, we trade one life for one life. “ from The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski