Blue Room 2

There I sit wit my cup of sugary tea, trying not to seem babyish but sulking a little. At least no bib has been provided. I'm secretly and tentatively at work on something among my creased sheafs of notepaper. Also scattered here and there are some flyers announcing upcoming gigs or the release dates of little records. I am secretly at work among all these, and the purpose of my design? It is slowly and painfully taking shape on various bits of paper: my plan to get into college.
Oh dear... I had been quite absorbed in the details of my secret schema, incorporating timeframe and logistical goals and all, when I'm afraid a jog of the elbow brought on by a certain agitation made me upset and partially spill my cup o tea... Then having to stem the sticky stains on the plastic tray with bits of flyer and yellow notepaper, cursing to myself.
Up comes daddy dearest and, while I'm distracted, snatches my most precious piece of paper, containing my secret schema, my sort of five-year-plan.
Daddy is a fifty-year-old, rotund, melancholy, great beard like a Tartar bushily outgrowing, pince-nez. "What's this? Ho ho... What have we got here?... "plan to get into college"!? Ho ho ha ha... You'll be lucky son."
..."With your qualifications, your lack of application, your record of failures and unreliability... Don't you realise you've no chance?"
Now in this dada spake wisely. Universities are not known for their eagerness in investing in the education of difficult, unqualified ne'er do wells, such as I am, a ne'er do well who, it must be added, has consistently made a hash of every venture he put his hand to.
Now dada is rather cross. Now and again he gets in a mood like this and, with something like penetrating insight, begins to carp and complain. "Thrown away the benefits of a perfectly good third-rate Catholic education" says he. "The rot started back in primary school, oh I see it all now. At that tender age, say about seven, the onus was on you to think of your future. You had the choice of subjects. Why din't you take Baby and Child Care? You could at least be decently useful in some ways."
"Because I didn't want to" I rejoined bitterly. "Takin' care of kids don't interest me. What, I'm sposed to take Baby and Child Care when I could take somethin interesting like... like Modern Studies?"
"Naw, you're sposed to be just really miserable". This in heavily sardonic and sarcastic tones. The level of debate has obviously sharply declined.
"Good, cos I will be!" I sharply retort, getting ready almost to shout now we have reached the level of the playground slanging match.
Well, the fact is I am often accused of being miserable, sour-faced etc, and notwithstanding the contempt implied for me in this my father's statement, I fell back rather stupidly on a certain stubborn pride I have in my own melancholy and lack of grace, you know a certain darkness and taciturnity can be attractive if cultivated properly. So I sulked: "If there's one thing I've always been good at, it's being miserable".