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Ernie was very excited this morning as he had decided to break the World Record for highest Lego Tower built by a 9-year-old that was rainbow coloured. He was confident of getting this as the record did not, as far as he was aware, exist. So he got to work and built a tower that was over four feet tall and only partly kept up by the wall and the TV it was leaning against.
He was pretty thrilled.
Sadly it fell down so he tried to make it again, this time, a little bit shorter, on a cardboard box to give it better support, still leaning against the wall, but definitely rainbow.
He wanted us to get in touch with the Guinness Book of Records so they could verify the record. I think I tried to let them know that I had the oldest ventriloquist dummy that is still working and it was harder than it looked and involved paying them some money, so I wasn't sure that we'd be able to do that for him. Also I thought Ross and Norris Macwhirter would probably claim that this wasn't a real record, if they could break off from being dead and racist for five seconds.
So as a loving father I decided to look online to see if I could find a blank World Record form that I could fill in and give to Ernie. My computer skills are not great, but I've been listening to Andy Hunter Murray's documentary on the Hitler Diaries and realise that for most forgery you just need confidence and someone who really wants to believe.
I was worried he would realise it was fake or that his sister would tell him and that this might not be the triumph that I hoped. I wasn't trying to prank him, just trying to give him what he wanted. Of course there was the danger the lie would escalate and he'd go and show everyone at school and someone would question the veracity of the document and it would be humiliating. Especially if he was still showing it to people when he was 28 years old.
When I gave him the document (which was perfect except that I forgot to close some brackets and it was signed by Norris Macwhirter who is currently incapacitated by death and racism. But Ernie's initial reaction was delighted triumph. My subterfuge had been worthwhile. He was over the moon.
But then he said "Wait, is this real?" though he still believed and his sister scoffed whilst I claimed that it was. He didn't know if he had won this certificate fairly or if he was being punk'd and I was in a halfway house of lies now, where I didn't want to go too all in, but also wanted him to have the accolade. I just wanted him to put the certificate on his wall and never show it to any experts who might spot the flaws.
Ernie asked me to google a real certificate so he could check it and to be fair, mine looked very like a real one. But Ernie spotted there was no date on mine and so declared it a fake. And was then very upset that this wasn't real and demanded I get his achievement properly ratified.
My attempt to make my son happy had inevitably backfired. It's tough being a dad. But I said I'd try and get him a real one, even though that is impossible due to this not being a record and it being vaguely rainbow in nature doesn't make any difference. The highest lego tower is over 35 metres and used 550,000 lego pieces (though to be fair, Ernie did his with a width of one block throughout and these Spanish cheats built it with a base and thick body and seemingly some kind of wires holding it up).
When Ernie inevitably becomes a comedian he may one day do a show about the day his father betrayed him with a fake certificate and I have probably mentally scarred him for life. But I did it out of love (95%). Maybe 5% hoping he'd believe it and then much later on find out it wasn't real and he'd look like an idiot for believing it.
Parenthood is complicated.
