The irritating little voice grew louder and louder until the words You Are Supposed To Be Baby-Sitting Me found purchase in my brain. But that wasn't what the tiny little voice was saying, that was Dream Filter Guy, the guy who controls my night dreams, turning them into traumatic exposures of what I really think and believe, the stuff I cover up skilfully all day long by simply lying my face off. No, the voice was actually saying ''Why are there no girls playing?''
The grandchild Jude is 5. He has no right to ask intellectually deep questions, especially when I am watching sport, a state which requires no use of the brain whatsoever. It would have been easy to say that if any girl strayed into the Highlanders front row to scrummage with some of them Chiefs, her spine would be snapped in two, like a twig in the hands of Shrek. Jude knows about Shrek, he would understand the analogy. But Jude doesn't know about spines being snapped in two because the News is turned off whenever he enters the room. His mother would drown me in boiling chip fat if I ever started talking about men breaking girls' spines.
''They're not strong enough to play men's rugby. It's very rough,'' I said.
''They actually play their own rugby, and New Zealand is very good at it.''
''But they play Rippa rugby, and they're better than the boys,'' persisted Jude, unaware that history was being made on the screen. Nobody had expected the Highlanders to beat the Chiefs. But the child was correct. I had watched his older brother Rowan playing Rippa rugby for a couple of seasons, and some of the very best players were girls. Was this the time to give the little bugger one of those life lessons that he will never forget, that will shape him until he reaches 120? That girls grow up to be women and boys will always be boys? No, that wasn't the right life lesson for this topic, that was another issue altogether.
''Are there any girls WATCHING the game?'' he asked.
That was a question and a-half. A chillingly intelligent question like this should never come from the mouth of a 5-year-old. If I was to be brutally honest, I would be turning him into the most ethically twisted child in the entire George Street Normal School. I turned the television off and resolved to read about the game in the ODT the next day.
Of course there were girls watching the game. We are talking male chest-beating here. Anthropologists have been recording this stuff in jungles for centuries. I'm taking you to the rugby, babe, you'll love it. Listen to me as I use technical terms to describe the action to Steve and Cauliflower and Kev. Yes, Steve, Cauliflower and Kev are coming, too. We'll get some beers in first, it'll be bonzer.
This is the sort of thing serious golfers endure on a council golf course. Boy, who plays golf and can hit the ball 250 metres, takes Girl to the course, ostensibly to teach her the game, but really just so she can watch him hit the ball 250 metres. Cheapskate Boy just takes Girl to a driving range. So, Boy hits the ball 250 metres and Girl spends the next 20 minutes trying to hit the ball 5 metres. This is not sexist psychojabber. Golf is damn hard if you have never played before. I once spent 7 hours behind a pair like this at the QEII course in Christchurch. Water torture.
So yes, there ARE girls watching the rugby, because boys are idiots and would rather drive an electrical screwdriver through their eye than think what their girlfriend might really want to do.
Should a 5-year-old boy be told this?
Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
