HOW TO UPSET YOUR CHILDREN: Wait for their next check-up at the doctor’s, and then hand them their x-rays saying: “Bad news. The doctors found a weird skeleton thing spreading through your body, look.”

***

And just to be fair, here’s a neat way for young people to annoy adults.

You just wait for a grown-up to say, “My, you’ve grown SO MUCH since I last saw you” and then you point to their tummies and say the same thing.

***

But going back to scary skeletal creatures, the other day my daughter Kelci described groups of people who stagger blindly down the street staring at mobile phones as “zombies”, which made sense to me.

*** The conversation reminded me of a friend who said she “didn’t believe the dead can return to life”. I told her to visit my office at 5.55 pm any Friday.

Long-dead corpses spring from cubicles, ripping off dark suits to reveal sequined cocktail mini-dresses, and that’s just us guys.

***

In related news, the most staid office workers are the wildest partiers, says a press release I got from a guy called Mike Taylor whose dating website’s members voted for ACCOUNTANTS as “the most exciting people to go on dates with”.

I can believe this. A guy called David Ellis works on weekdays for the UK Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy. On holidays he travels the planet filming himself screaming on the world’s scariest roller coasters.

On an Asia trip, David visited 27 roller coasters in China in 16 days, and was delighted to find rides so jarring that he was lifted out of his seat in mid-air, which he calls “air time”.

I wish I’d thought of taking him on my morning minibus ride, during which we unfortunate passengers spend most of our time either in mid-air or pressed against the bus ceiling by G-forces.

***

But accountants do get a bad rap. I remember when the “Most Exciting Accountant” competition was launched, a columnist at theinquirer.net sneered: “A group of independent excitement experts will leaf through the applicants and pick out the most exciting, or perhaps least dull of the group. The current favorite at the bookies is one young man who owns a purple calculator.”

In my opinion, the commentator’s snarky tone is out of place considering the typical earnings and credibility level of internet journalists, both of which stand at 00.000, and that’s after generous rounding up.

*** The truth is that if you search Google News you’ll find some accountant launching a company, getting arrested, blowing a whistle, making a fortune, stealing a fortune, creating an empire, going on the run, etc. And that’s just MY accountant, keeping busy before lunch.

***

He counters accusations of being boring by keeping a cutting from the U.K. Daily Mail in his wallet, about a female horticultural analyst in the U.K. who gets PAID TO WATCH THE GRASS GROW.

Can you even BEGIN TO IMAGINE how this woman behaves during evenings and weekends? Woohoo.

How to Upset Your Children

Comments on this post are for paying subscribers