The amount of times I hear the words – ‘Mum!!!! You can’t
SAY that!’ seem only to correlate with the number of thread veins that are
appearing on my thighs*
Saying that all Asian people look the same; or that I wasn’t
surprised by the super academic achievements of the Chinese kids at school; or
a graduating boy looked like Augustus Gloop from (the original) Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory film are not condusive to acceptable behaviour whilst out in
public ear shot apparently.
Neither is commenting whilst passing and elderly gentlemen
on the foreshore with advanced arthristis – ‘that reminds me – when we go back
to England, I really miss Twiglets’
I am suffering from ‘Mother’s Mouth’. I seem to remember (probably when I was a
similar age to Darcie) that I also was mortified by the verbal witticisms that
my Mum would drop, in everyday conversation, like a pensioner with
flatulence. No acknowledgment for the
level of nastiness, no shake of the trouser leg, just ‘WA-BAM!’ drop the insult and keep walking, leaving the
then teenage me stood, mouth open and incredulous in the aisle of the
supermarket, checking to see who else would have heard
*what the actually fuck is a thread vein? Who invented them and what exactly IS their
purpose? And don’t even get me started on liver spots :/
Maybe it’s because as we get older we are less likely to
tolerate fools and bad service? I
remember being mortified when my Mum would apparently ‘make a fuss’ in a shop
over a warranty issue; this was well and truly recreated when Sam’s 18th
birthday present of a watch, appeared to not work the day of his birthday when
it was put on his wrist for the first time.
Sam was horrified when I made a fuss in the shop as I didn’t think it
was acceptable for it to be sent away for 6 weeks!! I would have made a much bigger fuss had he
not been there, pulling me away from the counter like a PitBull with a tug toy.
The older I get, the more I tend to let things flow from my
lips that really should never be allowed to escape. I’m convinced that age is directly correlated
to one’s fuck it response. Here are a
couple of examples of things that should probably have remained in my head:
Tupper-where?
Apparently, it was an elderly couple that made their fortune
from Tupperware. ‘How fantastic’ chirped
I, ‘I wonder if they had a Tupperware coffin each with a life time warranty and
if you happened to stumble across them in 10 year’s time, they’d both be
perfectly preserved and daisy fresh in their clip locked sealed
containers?’
Gopher one / Give her one?I was told about an OAP’s swingers party. It wasn’t keys that were placed in the fruit bowl – rather keys for their mobility scooters. If you aren’t financially stable enough for your own gopher (they have two seater ones in Australia – so Johnny and Sandy from Grease can reinact the T-Bird scene immortally), you can chuck in your dentures. I guess it gives it away though when you look up from the fruit bowl and your eyes lock with Norman and his gummy grin. If you were quick thinking, you could pop the teeth back in the bowl – no one would willingly choose ‘Slurper Harris’. To an OAP, the height of virility must be watching a man biting into an apple – no cutting it with a knife first, or removing it from your mouth with your choppers attached.
Blurred Vision.
It may be mean, but I asked my eldest not to lend my bike
helmet to a particularly spotty mate. It
would only take one last minute breaking decision and I would be wiping off a
dot-to-dot puzzle from the inside of my visor for days.
Plane boring.
dropped Ralph off at the airport once for a cross country
trip and there was a plane ready to board before his. I watched intently as old people limped
towards the gangway, children cried and whinged, middle aged bland women wearing
beige shuffled and over weight men in tshirts that exposed the bottom of their
bellies all headed towards the plane. My
comment of ‘well, that would be no great loss to humanity if that plan fell
from the sky’ was not acceptable apparently.
Who knew?