Mr Potato Head – Daniel 39

 

For back story go here: Story so far, and maybe this one.]

[Relevant back story links also within text.]

Daisy was in full sulk mode and Daniel felt richly entitled to join her. She was in her bedroom he was in his. To be honest his choice of location was entirely out of spite. She had left the sitting room in a huff first and so didn’t realise where he had gone, also in a huff. It was highly likely that the next thing to happen would be that Daisy would come looking for him, not find him, panic, cry and break or damage something.

They had been trying to do some home schooling, or at least Daniel had been trying to get Daisy to do some home schooling having been assured by Chrissy that it didn’t count if Daisy just said something and he wrote it down. Even if they did speak every word together. 

“Writing is a skill and requires the development of fine motor skills,” she told him. 

“And teaching requires a qualification and years of practice,” he spat back.

Anyway, he thought he was going for the low hanging fruit by cutting potatoes into interesting shapes for printing but there was low hanging fruit and then there were potatoes cut into shapes for printing. Unfortunately for Daniel, while everything ran smoothly in the creation of the printing potatoes, the entire project hurtled out of control at the point when Daisy put painted potato to paper and instantly disliked the colour she had taken fifteen minutes to carefully create and choose.

Mrs Chistlehurst was going to love the photos Daniel had taken of their time together but she was also going to be hugely disappointed that they were no completed potato printing pieces of art to wow her with.

Never mind, thought Daniel, maybe Daisy’ll do it later. She’ll suddenly get half way through tea and want to complete her art experience. Or she’ll stop pushing at her chips in an unsatisfied manner finally leaving them with some kind of decision that now is the right time to play with half a strangely cut potato. And she’ll still refuse to believe that chips come from potatoes in the first place.

Daniel sighed and wandered back toward the sitting room – the scene of their potato related discontent. He’d leave everything where it was and have a coffee.

The problem was motivation. How did you motivate a small girl to do these things if she really didn’t want to? His own personal motivation was never in doubt but he realised he couldn’t offer Daisy a decent salary and benefits just to get her to do some work. He could try chocolate again but thanks to a couple of cooking escapades, chocolate wasn’t so much a reward now as part of the furniture. Even special chocolate wasn’t that special any more – especially not for Daisy who’d had so much special chocolate for Christmas she was actually hankering after plain digestive biscuits most of the time.

Maybe the trick wasn’t to motivate but to demotivate. She didn’t respond when he showered her with praise and took his place cheering her on, so maybe she would put more effort in if she thought he didn’t think it was that much cop. It wasn’t reverse psychology entirely but it was assuming that if everything were set up to fail, to get in the way of her efforts then maybe she would put in more effort to prove him wrong. Maybe, in the face of background failure she would push forward to achieve undeniable success.

And then he wondered whether he’d stumbled across a wider potential offering. The business world was full of motivational speakers – now more than ever as everyone scrambled around trying to haul each other out of the trench of lockdown. Rise above it, be focused, look for the next chance, the new opportunity you know is always the flip side of challenge. But what if there was always someone there telling you what a failure you were? How everything was well and truly stuffed and you didn’t have enough talent to make it better? Wouldn’t you want to prove them wrong?

'Behind every success is your banality.'

'Strive all you like, it’ll still be the same.'

'Be a part of the team – the worst part.'

Daisy wandered in while he was mid-way through this thought.

“Sorry Daddy,” she said. “I didn’t like the colour and the potato was all blotchy. I thought I was going to throw up.”

“But you didn’t,” pointed out Daniel, adding before he could stop himself: “And you didn’t finish that work either and not finishing something is really not good.”

“Do you think I’m not good, Daddy?” asked Daisy.

“Well. Not exactly but...”

“Don’t worry it’s ok,” she said. “I just won’t do anything.”

And she sat on the sofa and didn’t.