Hello 7 Reasons readers. Due to unforeseen circumstances we’re going to publish a guest post on a Thursday, which is something that we’ve never done before. So here, taking up not very much space on the 7 Reasons sofa at all, but making quite a lot of noise and a bit of a smell that we’re pretending not to notice, is today’s guest poster. Possibly our youngest ever.
Hello! My name’s Byron Sebastian Fearns and I’m a baby. Now I may not have seen much in my five and three quarter months, but today the most wonderful thing happened and I was compelled to share with you what I discovered; it is the most exciting thing in the whole history of the world ever. It’s something called a red bucket. Here are seven reasons that it’s more amazing than anything else, even elephants and balls.
1. It’s Red! The first thing I noticed when my mother and father wheeled me through the big building full of shiny stuff and dishcloths and picked up my toy that I now know is called a “bucket” (which rhymes with “fuck it”, a phrase I heard my father say once shortly before mother became very cross) was that it is red. This means that it’s amazing and not blue or yellow like everything else that people buy for me on the basis that “it’s for a boy” or that “yellow is a neutral colour”. I don’t like blue (it is a colour that makes my father cry at football matches) and I’m not neutral. If I liked neutral colours I’d hurl magnolia coloured food at the walls rather than orange coloured food. I like bright colours! I like red!
2. It Makes A Noise! It does! As we perambulated through the big building full of shiny stuff and dishcloths Father turned the bucket upside-down and began banging on the bottom of it. It made a noise like the noise that the man next door makes all day long in his kitchen or the sound that Father sometimes makes with his head on the desk after he has stared at a white screen for a considerable period of time. I’m relatively new to the concept of onomatopoeia, but it made a noise that sounded like thump-thump-diddle-diddle-ump and was very loud. The ladies that live in the big building full of shiny things seemed most impressed.
3. It’s Hilarious! Then we took my bucket to the park where the trees and squirrels live. We lay down on the grass and, after I had completed a short bout of screaming for absolutely no reason, Father said “Look Byron” and put the bucket over his head. This was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Ever! Father then took it off his head and put it back on his head and I laughed again. We did this for hours! Father enjoyed this so much that he started rolling his eyes and staring at his watch with delight.
4. It Makes Another Noise! Just when I felt that I might eventually tire of Father putting the bucket on his head, taking it off again and then putting it back on his head, something amazing happened. Father coughed and it sounded like the deepest loudest sound ever heard by anyone at all. This was hilarious. I laughed for ages. Then Father made other noises in the bucket too and they were even funnier. They were so funny that I laughed more than I ever have before; they were so funny that Mother had to edge slowly away from us in case she injured herself with all of the fun; they were so funny that Father suddenly became religious and started asking god when he could go home. He spoke to god in the bucket! Oh, how I laughed.
5. It Moves! Then Father stood up and started running round the park with the bucket on his head and pretended to be a monster (which is a creature similar to a dog). “Rooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!” he said as he ran round a tree; “Roooooooooaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!” he said as he ran past a bench; “Rooooooaaaaarrrrrrr!!!!!!!” he said as he ran behind a bush”; “Aaaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!” screamed a tour group from behind the bush; “Roooooaaaaaaarrrrrrr!!!!!” he said as he ran back from the bush; “OOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!!” he said as he fell over a bin. Then he said a word that I’ve never heard before and Mother shouted a lot and we had to go home.
6. It’s Red Inside Too! On the way home Father put the bucket on my head and I thought it was the most awesome and amazing thing that it’s possible for any human to experience, ever. It turned everything in the world red and when I made a noise it was the biggest noise that anyone has ever made. It was bigger even than the noise that Father made when I weed on his coat as he was changing my nappy at the National Railway Museum. It was amazing! Then Father took the bucket off my head and the next-door-neighbours were there and they seemed concerned.
7. I Can Get In It! After a long – and really boring – conversation with the neighbours about babies and the bucket and stuff we got home and then something happened that was the most incredible, fantastical and phantasmagorical thing of all. I got into the bucket!
- Look at me! I’m in the bucket.
Then Father took the bucket away and told me if I ever wanted to see it again I had to write today’s 7 Reasons post as he has something called a “headache”, which he says is a contagious disease that is contracted by proximity to children. So now I’ve written it I’m going to get the bucket back and play with it all day every day for a week. Or perhaps a month! I’m off to play with my bucket now. Bye-bye.
