Distracted Dad
Richard Hearn and the Oscar-worthy expression…
“He looks surprised!” So many people comment on Youngest’s™ default expression. He constantly looks surprised: wide-open round eyes and eyebrows raised. A lot of people think it’s to do with something he’s seen, something that’s just happened. If so, it’s just one damn surprising thing after another.
“He’s surprised by my scarf,” they say behind us in the queue at Sainsbury’s. Or maybe a more general: “I’ve surprised him there! I have that effect.”
They assume it’s something they’ve done, that their action has caused an equal and opposite reaction. I‘m not sure there always is an action, just his reaction; I think he blows Newton’s theory out of the water.
Once you have kids, strangers definitely make more small talk. I’m not a particularly chatty person, but I quite like this. No doubt if your child is wearing a bright yellow hat or dressed up as an owl, they’d comment on that, but with Youngest™ their opening gambit is always that he looks surprised.
“He looks shocked to be here.” That’s the other one people say. I did have a good variation the other day: an elderly woman nudging an elderly man.
“If something genuinely surprising should happen to Youngest, how would he react?”
“He’s surprised by your face,“ she said to him, and then turned to me. “They often look surprised by my husband’s face.” I checked it out, and his face wasn’t all that surprising. But yes, Youngest™ was demonstrating his usual shock and awe.
We’ve been successful this week in Surprise Supermarket Bingo. A stranger commented on his expression in four of the main ones. This week: Sainsbury’s, Tesco’s, Waitrose, and Asda all ticked off.
If ever something genuinely surprising should happen to Youngest™, how would he react? Extra surprised, to a Guinness Book of Records level with Olympic quality eyebrow raising? I’d like to see it.
Or would it be the same level, casting every other expression of surprise in the role of ‘cry wolf’, so when you really need to know that something surprising is on the horizon (a UFO in the sky over St Peter’s Church perhaps, or an earthquake opening a chasm along the Old Shoreham Road) we just won’t read the signs.
I’m wondering about hiring him out for films. In some, you always see the actor’s reaction first. It adds to the tension. He wouldn’t be any good in an indie film or something French, where you have to look cool and understated. However, he’ll demand the premium price for a Hollywood disaster movie or something involving the frequent sudden appearance of clowns.
He’ll probably get an Oscar. I’d be surprised if he didn’t.
