Should I be worried?

She was staring absentmindedly out of the car window as we drove the wet roads to Hout Bay. Raindrops left perforated trails against her window and she watched them for a while, tracing her finger along their interrupted pathways.

"Mom," she said at last, " have you and Dad ever robbed a bank?"

Choke. What? Stall.

"Er, no, Honey. Robbing banks is bad. We would never do something like that."

Silence.

"No, but like stealing," she offered. "Have you guys ever stolen something?"

"That wouldn't be right," I said. "So: no. We don't do what isn't right."

Then the thought struck me:

"How about you?" I asked. "Have you even stolen anything?"

She looked up from the watery design on her window and rolled her eyes. "How could I?" she sounded almost exasperated. "I have a family who won't even let me go into the front garden on my own!"

So now I asked myself: was that frustration at not being able to go into our unwalled front garden on the main road in our suburb, or was it regret at not having had a chance to burgle?

The mind boggles. Really it does.

Prostitutes and Purple Pipes

I've been a very bad blogger, I know, but to make up for it, I have two new, never before seen, brand-spanking new, entirely nascent AirBear sayings to make up for it.

*********************

Yesterday we were driving home from ballet, and the news was on. One of the headlines was about sex-workers winning a court appeal against policemen for arresting them for who they are and not for what they do. One prozzie claimed that she had been arrested over 200 times without charge.

Well, the girls always listen to the news when we're in the car. And AirBear gets quite interested in this woman, right. She wants to know why she got arrested. "Because she did something bad," I attempt to ignore the core of the answer. But she isn't satisfied. She wants to know exactly what that bad thing was that got a woman arrested 200 times.

I sigh. "Airie, I'll tell you when you're older, ok?" 

"NO! Mom," I see big eyes pleading at me in the rear-view mirror, "you need to tell us now!"

"Why? Why not when you're older?"

"Because what if we do the same thing?"

"You probably won't," I shake my head - I guess it's a fair question.

*********************

The next story opens with me on the loo. This used to be a regular public performance, but I've cut down on my audience admissions, and try to keep them outside the bathroom when I need to go. It works most of the time, not always, but most of the time.

On the occasions that I have the room to myself, you can be sure that at least one little person is seated just on the other side of the door, having a very important conversation with me that can't wait until later.

So there we were. Me on the loo, and AirBear guarding the entrance.

Things were going pretty quietly until there was a great gasp from beyond the walls of my privvy. It was the kind of gasp that makes you think that the person gasping has just seen a giant spider, or just won the Euro Lotto.

"What is it?" I inquired.

"Mom," she stated, most matter-of-factly, "you're not going to believe this: the pipes in my soul are purple!"

Will someone volunteer how I'm supposed to respond to that.

The more I tried to figure out what she was talking about, the more anxious and excited she became about her purple soul pipes. For a minute or two we chattered back and forth while I tried to make out what the heck she was on about.

Turns out she spotted the superficial veins in her wrist.

Go figure.

The Bad Guy Wants more Power and more Money

My kids ask a lot of questions. About everything. Mostly, they want to know: Why?

Sound familiar?

Often, their "whys" are focussed on the bad guy in a story. Why did he do that? Trying to understand evil and conniving deceit is something my kids tend to battle with. It's a matter of trying to understand why everyone can't just be friends.

The answer, that I tend to end up with, when asked why someone did something mean, or nasty, or evil, is that the bad guy is always after more money and more power. And it's an answer that has worked for so many whys. 

Why does the queen want to hurt Snow White? She wants to keep her power.

Why were Cinderella's step sisters so mean to her? Because they wanted the prince, and therefor more power.

Why does the butler try to lose the cats in Aristocats? Because he wants to inherit their fortune.

Why did the bankers take Jimmy's money in Mary Poppins? Because they wanted more money.

Why does Count Olaf try to hurt the orphans in Lemony Snickett's Series of Unfortunate Events? Because he wants their money.

And their whys stretch beyond the fairy-tale domain. Why is Robert Mugabe such a bad president? (Yes, my kids are up to date with current politics, and they are aware of the tenuous situation in our neighbouring country). The answer is more money and more power.

And so it was today that a report aired on talk-radio as we drove home from ballet. Three policemen were arrested for selling confiscated narcotics to drug dealers. We listened to the news like we always do. Some questions followed. Why were the policemen arrested? They did something bad. Why? For money, I guess. The bad guys are after more power and more money.

There was a period of industrial thinking as we turned onto our street.

T-Bird, an amazing logical thinker, described her solution to the recently reported problem: The policemen got arrested for selling drugs. Drugs are bad. Why didn't they just sell vegetables? Or lolly pops? Then they could still make money, but not get arrested.

Yes, my darling daughter, why didn't they just do that instead?

My apologies to Queen

Many years ago, a friend told me about how she stalled her car on the highway when her 4 year old started singing, at the top of her voice, a new song she had learned at Sunday school:  

"Jehovah Jireh, my vagina!"

And you'd think that that would be as bad as it could get, right? That nothing could be more startling while winding your way through after school traffic. Right? Wrong.

Cut to today. After school. We're driving home. It's hot. The windows are wound down. The traffic is inching along.

"How was school?" I ask the two little faces staring at me in the rear-view mirror.

"We're learning about the letter "wuh"," whistles T-Bird. She starts whirring a list of 'W'-written words. 

AirBear, out of sorts for not having a wider 'W'-vocabulary to offer to the conversation, starts whining mercilessly.

"We learnt a new song at school," she says.

I'm stopped at a red traffic light. Cars all around. I wink at her in the mirror. "Let's hear it then," I say.

"It's also got 'wuhs' in," she states.

The opposite stream of traffic slows down. My green light is imminent. "Ok," I'm waiting.

"We will, we will, fuck you!" She croons. Loudly.

Green light. I stall the car. Badly. There's a Jeep Cherokee halfway up my exhaust pipe.

She didn't say it, I tell myself, and restart the car. I smile at her reflection, as I pull away in third gear. I wave at the guy in the Jeep. He's unimpressed. I mount the curb. "That's nice," I cringe. "But I think I missed one part of it. Sing it to me again, please."

"We will, we will, fuck you!" She's grinning. I'm rolling up the windows.

"My sweetie pie, " I've swerved into oncoming traffic, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. "I think the song goes like this: We will, we will ROCK you."

"Oooooh," she nods her head. She's quiet for a moment, contemplating. "But it did have a "wuh" in it, hey mom?"

Yes, darling daghter, it really did.

I am NOT a camper - sorry!

We've been talking about going camping during the December holidays. I was actually even starting to get into the camping vibe with self-speech like: it'll be sooo good for the kids; it's healthy; it's stress-free; we'll just get away from it all.

Part of the pre-planning planning stage of going camping, for us, was to erect the tent to see what bits and pieces we may be missing (another item on that end of year to-do list - CHECK!).

When Friday afternoon arrived, our four-man tent was erected in our back yard. We discovered that we were, in fact, missing two tent pegs for the shade cloth that fits over the whole contraption. At least we know - shew!

But an erected tent in the backyard - let's just get back to that statement right there, shall we? It was all the kids could do to not explode with excitement. Excitement which spilled over into anguished pleas to sleep in the tent.

What the heck, right? We might as well get a bit of camping practice in while we can, before we set out on a trip only to discover that we were not made to camp.

So we set up camp; the kids sharing on a spare mattress, and the mother of the year and me on the blow-up double mattress. With all the essential necessities (duvets, pillows, reading material etc), our whole family went to bed at 20h30 - but only because we couldn't put the kids to bed outside by themselves now, could we?

Sleeping in your garden poses a couple of, shall we call them, discomforts. Firstly, we live in South Africa. Secondly, our house is fully secured by burglar alarm, but sadly, our garden is not. Thirdly, we live in South Africa.

So the first thing I become aware of, is how bloody loud the traffic is when I am not surrounded by the volume control of brick and cement. I swear there was some kind of drag race down my street. All. Night. Long. No kidding. I woke up about six times due to speed freaks zooming past our house throughout the night.

The next minor irritation was the size of my shared sleeping space. I am accustomed to a king-size bed. I like to be able to toss and turn until I find my comfy-position, without rolling over into an elbow, an armpit or a forehead. And another thing about blow-up mattresses is that when more than one person is lying on one, the lighter of the two tends to roll towards the heavier one who is demonstrating far stronger gravity effects than the less heavy of the two. So I spent most of the night clutching onto my side of the mattress, trying to anchor myself and avoid slipping into the valley of the elbows.

There's that, and then also the fact that whenever your sleeping partner moves on a blow-up mattress, you tend to get bounced around a bit. And this is not conducive to good sleep.

And did I mention the bit about living in South Africa? Well, we do. And with that comes the constant awareness of crime. Every South African has some degree of cognizance of what kind of a target you may represent to a lurking criminal. And even more so when you're sleeping in your garden. Outside of the protection of your burglar bars and laser beams. Every little noise raises the hair on the back of your neck. Even the bunnies munching grass sound like ominous creeping feet.

So all in all, it was not an easy night. And by 4am when T-Bird had a bad dream and yelled out: "Daddy, look out! The bad guy's behind you with a gun!", I can honestly say I had had enough. As you can imagine, my adrenaline levels sky-rocketed. My heart was beating so fast I thought my sternum was going to disintegrate!

I settled my T-Bird, and placed her next to her (deeply sleeping) father. I climbed into (the single mattress) bed with AirBear and tried to while away the next couple of hours.

The discussion the following morning between my darling hubby and myself revolved around how much I do not want to go camping. That, and how flipping stiff my neck was. He assures me the problem lies with the mattress. But would you blame me if I turned down the invite?

Give me a break, already!

I thought we had an understanding, Mother Nature and me. Seems like all deals are off.

You heard about the spider bites, right? Well, the last count was right leg: 8, left leg: 7, sundry: 2. But I put that all aside. I thought that hey, maybe I could be to blame. Maybe I should have worn wellies and armor plated leggings while watering my garden. Sure, I suppose I could have.

Then. An overcast, windy day found me weeding the garden. Removing the gunk and muck that threatens to destroy a healthy lawn. And what did that get me? A sunburn. Deep. Maroon. Sunburn. A sunburn that is bullied by bra straps and tank tops. This is the kind of sunburn that begs to be left the hell alone. No clothing. No water. No touchy. No nothing. And somehow, apart from the usual back and shoulder burn, I am sporting a truly strange knee burn too. Both legs. Mid thigh to lower patella. Don't ask me how. Just cry with me every time a little person clambers on to my lap. Damn you, Ozone.

And then, as if that isn't enough, my worst nightmare. No, not the one about the giant tarantula and the melting ice-rink. I'm closing my blinds at the end of the day when something white and fluffy in the street catches my eye. A bunny. Not one of mine. I feel sorry for the poor thing. Lost. Alone. Frightened. Carefully I open my garden gate, a mere 3 meters from where it sits nervously munching on the weeds in my lawn. Leaving the gate, I go all the way around the house, through the front door and out into the street, to encourage the poor dear into a safe harbour, namely my back yard. Well. Number one. The poor dear has scampered up the road in the headlights of a Fiat Uno travelling at a snail's pace so as not to ride over the creature. And number two, in stepping out onto the grass of my front lawn, eyes locked on a fluffy white tail bounding up the hill, I step, barefoot, into a massive dog turd. I mean, come on! What more?

So I figure the old gal's got it in for me. Just what else she has hidden up her sleeve, I have no idea. I guess if it can't kill me it will only make me stranger. No spelling mistake.

Wonky Donkey

T-Bird: Mom, is petrol very expensive?

Mom: Yes.

T-Bird: How much does a car cost?

Mom: I dunno. About one hundred and twenty thousand rands, maybe.

T-Bird: Is that more than a thousand?

Mom: Yip. Quite a bit.

T-Bird: How much is a donkey?

Mom: I dunno. Maybe four thousand rands.

T-Bird: I think I'm going to get a donkey instead of a car!

Mom: Really?

T-Bird: Yes.

AirBear: And a donkey is friendly. I'm going to get one too!

Mom: And what if it rains?

T-Bird: I'll take an umbrella with.

AirBear: And a raincoat.

Mom: And where will you keep your donkey?

T-Bird: I'll build a huge huge huge stable.

AirBear: And I'll have a huge huge huge garden. With carrots in it.

Mom: I see. And what about the petrol?

T-Bird: Ha Ha!

Capetonian Drivers

From the start, I have firmly believed that Cape Town drivers do not know how to drive - properly. It was hands-on experience with confused drivers stuck at faulty traffic lights, or even the less-than-complicated traffic circle that led me to believe this. Nobody seems to know whose turn it is, or whose supposed to go next. The result is a long awkward pause, where traffic grinds to a dead halt, then everybody suddenly thinks that perhaps they should go - at the same time! What a mess.

Nowadays, whenever I am stopped at an intersection in Cape Town, the driver in the car to my left, or my right, or even ahead of me, will indicate to me, with their hands, that it is my turn to proceed. What's this all about? I don't remember that part of the K52 driver's training program. I recall the hand signalling suitable for indicating turning when there is a possible malfunction in the electronic indicators of the vehicle, but this whole "giving of permission to proceed" thing is really annoying.

It's annoying when it's the other driver's turn to go, but they are such nervous drivers that they want everybody to get out of a 100m radius from them, so even though you're waiting for them to pull off, as rightly they should, they sit wildly waving you on.

It's more annoying when it's your turn to go, and the other driver waves you on - like they're giving you permission, like they're saying "You may make use of this opportunity to cross the road before me - I will graciously allow it."

And there are times when the other driver's windows are so tinted, you can't make out if it's a "please proceed" or a "please drop dead" that they're gesturing at you.

I used to wave a sort of confused thank-you in response to this granting of consent, but that made the situation that much more annoying for me. Now I just grind my teeth and scowl - I must look like a really angry driver, just waiting for that moment that I can unleash a barrage of road-rage on the first person to change lanes without indicating. It's all in the hope that I might scare off the next generous imparter of intersection thoroughfare.

If you ever see me driving around Cape Town, don't think that I'm angry. Also don't wave me through a four-way stop. I have a legit driver's license. How about you?

Tale of a Taxi

So. At the risk of alarming you, I'll just come out and say it so it's out there and before I even say it, just know that everything is fine. I'm still alive and kicking. Well, alive anyway.

Yesterday I nearly died. I completely took my life into my hands and placed it, without much thought, into the grimy paws of a TCN taxi driver. What on earth was I thinking? I should have at least asked to see his driver's license before seating myself in the Taxi-To-Hell-As-Long-As-We-Don't-Get-Lost-Along-The-Way-In-Which-Case-We-May-End-Up-In-Zimbabwe-Which-Is-Probably-The-Same-Place-So-Buckle-Up-And-Let's-Go!

As the door closed behind me, a fly that had been flapping around some long-forgotten crumb on the carpet, flew up to the dashboard and took a look at where we were going. I tried to wave him out of my line of vision.

The engine started. The driver looked nervous - had he not expected something? I tried not to read anything into the slight look of panic in his eyes and the beads of sweat growing on his forehead.

We jerked abruptly into motion. My head hit the back rest. I put my hand up to give it a rub and had to pull strands of hair out of the velcro-like pillow cushioning the headrest. I didn't dare turn my head to have a look at what other organic things might be trapped in the tiny hooks. My eyes were locked on the road ahead. Our turn approached in abrupt jolts. We passed it. Also in abrupt jolts.

"That was our turn," the driver was informed. His trembling knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. The fly started to flit nervously around the radio controls. The driver actually tried to do an instantaneous u-turn (in a one-way only road) to take us back to our turn. The action was called to a halt when a large car zoomed past on the right. He found a detour to take us back.

My neck was starting to ache from the stop-start driving. The fly was also looking a little worried.

We were heading for the highway. I suddenly felt very anxious. I braced myself. The driver seemed to develop instant highway dread, and slammed on the breaks. The fly found himself flat up against the windscreen. I tried to exchange glances with my fellow passenger in the back seat, but she was prying the driver's seat out of her eye.

The driver worked up his courage and stepped on the accelerator. We shot out into highway traffic. The fly flew to the window and banged his little fly fists against the glass, begging to be released from this capsule of death.

I realised that I had been holding my breath when I started feeling slightly woozy. I gulped taxi-tainted air deep into my lungs and turned to check out the driver. Was this guy actually for real?

The driver had his eyes closed and seemed to be murmuring something under his breath. He was praying. That's when I realised I should probably be doing the same thing.

I closed my eyes. My life started unfolding in a movie-like manner on my mental screen. The thought struck me, somewhere between watching a kitten being born and a traumatic dentist visit, that neither of the people in the front seat of this vehicle had their eyes on the road. I pressed PAUSE and looked up into the glaring red break lights of an SUV. My gasp woke the driver from his supplications and he slammed on the breaks. Again.

The fly had given up and was lying on his back on my lap, wings crumpled. That, or the impact of banging into the windscreen for the umpteenth time had rendered him spiritless.

Fortunately our destination was just off the highway. When the driver pulled into the parking lot we threw open the doors and tumbled out into the dust and dirt. It took all my presence of mind (of which there was very little by the time our trip was over) not to kiss the ground in absolute gratitude.

As the vehicle pulled away, I had to steady myself when I noticed the dents and scratches that the body of the car sported. I don't think any of those blemishes were thanks to our little adventure around the block. A fly landed on my shoulder. I waved it away.

All I can say is that, on any normal day, I am grateful for being able to drive myself around.