CHILDREN do thick things, for thick reasons. Here are some of the densest excuses you used to justify your behaviour as a child.
‘There’s a monster under my bed’
Desperate for a few extra minutes of TV before bed, you cunningly pretend there’s a horrifying monster living in your room. And your gullible parents fall for it. Fools. However, when you do go to bed, you’ve bought into the hype and now believe there’s some hideous demon just inches below your mattress and you spend the night shitting it.
‘I was dared to’
Earning the respect of your peers is never more important than when you’re a child. Unfortunately, your peers are also idiotic children impressed by absolute nonsense. So when you accidentally break the new TV by hurling a banana at it after your friend dares you to, see how much traction this gets with your furious parents.
‘They made me’
You’re playing the sympathy card, trying to make it sound like you only stole chocolate from that corner shop under duress. Unfortunately, you’re not some drug dealer in over their head who has to do whatever their kingpin says for fear of their life. You’re a greedy eight-year-old in Nantwich who just wanted a Mars bar for free.
‘My friend said it would be funny’
Standing by the smouldering remains of your school bag, surrounded by the local fire brigade and your livid parents, even you can tell how feeble an excuse this is. Sure, setting fire to your bag seemed like a fun idea, but as soon as that Jansport logo went up in flames you knew you’d made a massive mistake.
‘Everyone else was doing it’
A classic. You think, as a seven-year-old, that this is as bulletproof an excuse as they come. Flash forward several years and you realise that this was the exact thinking used by defendants in the Nuremberg Trials. While you may only have used it to justify being caught scribbling on your desk in school, it’s best to make sure things don’t escalate.
