A day at the seaside with Grandad Schwab

Heidi and Jürgen were so excited they could hardly contain themselves. It was the first day of the school holidays and Grandad Schwab was coming round to take them to the seaside. The children couldn’t remember much about Grandad Schwab, as they had not seen him for at least four years. He lived a long way away and he was always very busy working on important things like the New World Order. But they assumed he would be just as funny and entertaining as their other Grandad who they regularly saw every month.

There was a knock at the front door and Heidi and Jürgen jumped for joy as they followed Daddy Schwab to answer it. “Grandad Schwab, Grandad Schwab!” the children sung out with sheer delight.

“Goot Morning children,” said Grandad Schwab in a sombre tone.

Grandad Schmidt, the children’s other Grandad, often used to bring them little gifts, which he would playfully hide under his floppy fishing hat. However, there was no hat on Grandad Schwab’s shiny bald head and the children looked up at him inquisitively wondering if he was hiding any gifts somewhere about his person. Their suspense grew as he put his hand into his inside pocket.

“You vill both need to vear vun of zees,” said Grandad Schwab as he took a pink GPS tracking bracelet out of his inside pocket and fastened it to Heidi’s wrist. Heidi loved bracelets and she was delighted with Grandad Schwab’s choice of gift, even if he did pull it a little too tight.

“Oh, thank you so much, Grandad Schwab,” exclaimed Heidi, as she went to kiss him on the cheek. But Grandad Schwab flinched and he moved his head away.

“Ve have to be very careful, young child,” he said. “I vill need to see proof of your vaccination status before we can indulge in such displays of affection.” He put his hand back in his pocket and turned to her elder brother as he pulled a blue bracelet out.

“I don’t wear bracelets!” Jürgen spat out in disgust. “I’m a boy and bracelets are for girls!”

Grandad Schwab grabbed the boy’s arm and forced the bracelet onto his wrist.

“Remember young man – the fourth industrial revolution vill lead to a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities,” he said with the coldest of stares.

Grandad Schwab wasn’t like Grandad Schmidt. The children’s excitement had turned to trepidation at the thought of spending a whole day with this strange old man.

Soon they went outside and Daddy Schwab belted the children into the car seats in the back of Grandad Schwab’s electric SUV. He pulled out some coins to give to his children for spending money.

“Zat vill not be necessary,” said Grandad Schwab. “I vill pay for everything using my i-phone. Zey vill have no money but zey vill be happy.”

“What about the amusement arcades?” asked Daddy Schwab.

“Vee vill not be visiting them,” replied Grandad Schwab. “Our brains become mesmerised by zese noisy arcade games and ve risk becoming a perpetual-motion machine ourselves vitch puts us in an unremitting frenzy…vee need to work together and shape a future that works for all by putting people first and steering us away from such crude technology and more towards advanced robotics so vee can blur the lines between ze physical, digital, and biological vorlds.”

Grandad Schwab was hard to follow sometimes.

So far the morning had not gone at all how the children had expected and they felt both sad and anxious as they set off. However, the motion of the car and Grandad Schwab’s monotonous tone soon sent them both off to sleep. They slept for the entire journey as their Grandad waffled on about entering an augmented social reality and the importance of the WEF program for young global leaders in helping to achieve this.

When they arrived at the seaside, the first stop was the funfair and Heidi and Jürgen were practically falling over themselves to get through the entrance gates. Grandad Schwab took out his i-phone to pay for the ride tokens and looked quite perplexed when the rugged looking traveller in the kiosk laughed at him.

“Cash payments only, Grandad!” he said with a toothless smile.

“Don’t you have any proper money, Grandad?” the children asked in disbelief.

Fortunately Jürgen had saved his week’s pocket money and just had enough for four tokens. Two rides each for both of them. He handed over the money to the man in the kiosk.

“Good job someone’s got some money,” said the cheeky kiosk man. “How about buying a cuppa for poor old Grandad? ”

“Zat vill not be necessary,” said Grandad Schwab, clearly unamused.

With their tokens at the ready Jürgen and Heidi made a beeline for the Chair-o-plane ride which was a particular favourite of theirs. In a flash, they were beyond the twenty metre range that Grandad Schwab had set up on his tracking app and the annoying high pitched alarm started to sound. He walked as briskly as his old bones would carry him towards the Chair-o-plane and the alarm stopped. However, once the ride started it had the effect of sending the tracking app into overdrive. Loud bleeps, bells, buzzes and sirens emanated from his i-phone and people stared curiously as he desperately tried to re-programme it. “Ficken technology!” he muttered under his breath.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon and time for fish and chips. Although many of the vendors on the promenade took contactless payments, embarrassingly, for Grandad Schwab the two fish and chip outlets did not. The ten minute walk to the fish and chip restaurant in the town centre would have been fine if it had not been accompanied by the two children repeatedly singing, “Grandad’s got no money!”

They settled down in the restaurant and the old man actually seemed to be mellowing out a little, as he tucked into his battered cod and chips. However, as they waited for their ice cream, he could not resist boasting to the children about how his organisation had infiltrated governments all over the world.

“Wow!” said Jürgen, clearly impressed with his Grandad at last. “Grandad Schwab is head of the Mafia! Have you ever beaten someone to death with a baseball bat? Or given them concrete shoes?”

“You have completely misunderstood me, you young dummkopf!” Grandad Schwab retorted haughtily. “The WEF adheres to the principles of independence, impartiality, moral integrity and intellectual integrity. These principles are of utmost importance to the safeguarding of the Forum’s mission, reputation and status.”

“Oh, he’s off again…BORING!” Jürgen sneered, whilst putting on a fake yawn.

It was too much for Grandad Schwab. The normally ice-cool intellectual was furious at such brazen disrespect. “You insolent little scheiße!” he shouted out in sheer frustration as he threw one of his left-over chips at Jürgen.

Unfortunately for Grandad Schwab, at precisely the same moment the waitress arrived with the ice cream. Jürgen carefully dug his spoon into his chocolate sundae, took aim and catapulted the contents towards Grandad Schwab’s face. It was the perfect shot. It landed just below Grandad Schwab’s nose, creating a little Hitler moustache out of the chocolate sauce.

“Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!” Jürgen joyfully shouted out whilst stamping his foot and doing a Nazi salute.

Grandad Schwab took his paper serviette and wiped the moustache off his face. He was not used to this kind of insubordination and he was consumed by an uncontrollable fury. He picked up his entire dessert, including the plastic dish and hurled it towards Jürgen. Jürgen ducked and it landed on the head of a rather plump, middle aged woman sitting opposite her husband. The thin but energetic husband leapt to her defence. He ran over to Grandad Schwab, positioned Heidi’s dessert in front of him and rammed his face into the ice cream. Grandad Schwab sat back up with the dessert and dish still stuck to his face. Heidi started to cry as she watched her delicious ice cream being wasted in such a pointless act of aggression. Next, a tattooed and muscle bound biker to the left of them got out of his chair and walked threateningly over to the table, shouting, “You’re brave, picking on a little girl and an old man – let’s see how hard you really are!”

“You leave him alone!” retorted the plump lady, who still had the dessert on her head and she ran over to the biker hitting him round the face with her hand bag. Before long there was a full blown riot in the restaurant. Food was flying, windmill punches were being thrown and tables were being turned over.

Five minutes later the police arrived and made several arrests, including Grandad Schwab. Heidi and Jürgen managed to make an escape but not before grabbing Grandad’s i-phone, which he had left on the table.

They ran to the sea front where they felt much safer and Jürgen called Daddy Schwab from Grandad’s i-phone.

“Can you come and pick us up, Daddy?” said Jürgen.

“What’s happened to Grandad?” asked their worried father.

“He’s in jail,” said Jürgen, nonchalantly.