A swimming pool drowning

I have always had a stronger than sneaking suspicion that I was secretly lucky to be born to my own parents and not some of those that I had read about, or saw on television or those that belonged to some of my friends.
There were a lot of things other families had, that even at a young age I was aware that we never had, but nothing that made our lives uncomfortable or difficult to bear.

Take the swimming pool incident. I mean you couldn’t script incidents like this. Not even if you tried. Incidents like this make you wish that our lives did have a replay button.

I was 11 years old and in standard three when my parents bought our seventh house.

Including two rentals, this was the ninth house I had lived in, in my eleven sun filled years. This was quite a few houses by anybodies standards.

This new home was a small, neat Victorian house in Mowbray. Complete with bay windows, Victorian fireplaces and two tiny outside rooms off the back garden that had previously served as domestic quarters.

No sooner had we moved in than we started the big renovation.

Part of this particular renovation was the inclusion of a  swimming pool.

My parents thought that they had a brilliant innovation and had worked out that for a fraction of the cost and the time you could get a pool that looked and felt just like a cement and concrete pool if by sinking a porta-pool below the ground.

With one exception, the membrane of the pool, although sturdy, was still only made of plastic sheeting. You were inevitably going to get occasional nicks and cuts which would result in leaks. My parents had considered this in advance and had worked out that you could simply repair any cuts with a special glue and  plastic that perfectly matched that pool membrane.

They were quite right and the cuts were never an issue. We had a couple of surface cuts that were repaired with ease before we discovered a cut on the bottom of the pool.

Other than the general shitty condition of the house when they bought it another of the reasons my parents had managed to get a good deal on the house was that the back garden was overlooked by a block of flats. It was rather invasive having a block of flats overlooking your garden but we discovered that for ninety percent of the time nobody was ever on their balconies, and for the ten percent of the time when they were it was hardly like they were leaning over looking down at us. We ignored them and they ignored us and we all discovered that the block of flats slowly evaporated into invisibility like a giant David Copperfield illusion.

The leak on the bottom of the swimming pool brought my parents, their pool repair system, and the block of flats behind our house together one sunny, summer Sunday morning in a way that we could never have guessed.

My father was in his bathing costume with a diving mask on his face and the repair kit lying on the side of the pool. I was tinkering around and generally getting in the way and offering unwanted advice. After a thorough search, which involved my father snorkelling around on the bottom of the pool, the leak was found and marked with a pebble. He cut and prepared the plastic patch and covered the one side with glue and left it to dry for the prerequisite five minutes. And that is when things started to go wrong.

My father was not weighted and as easy as it was to dive down to the leak, he couldn’t spend any time down there and was unable to exert the required pressure on the patch for the correct duration of time. He tried again and again, but each time he pushed down, his body simply rose up through the water. It clearly wasn’t working and he was clearly getting peeved. The voices and conversation was getting noisy and interesting.

Enter my mother with a broom. Between the two of them they decided that the best idea and most logical solution would be for her to pin him down with our kitchen broom pressed into the small of his back, allowing him the minute or so at the bottom to do what was needed.

I thought it was a superb idea.

And that is what the tenants in the block of flats saw when they looked over their balconies to investigate the source of the excited noise the on that sunny, summer morning.

A woman attempting to murder her husband by straining to pin his struggling body to the bottom of the pool with a sturdy kitchen broom in front the eyes of her young son. As his bubbles grew less and less frequent and his struggles weaker and less violent, more and more of them appeared at their balconies staring down in horror.

When my father eventually surfaced, glowing at having successfully completed the task, his eyes were drawn up to the block of flats beside us. My mother and I followed his gaze upwards. My permanent recollection is of several staring faces looking down at us over their balconies in wide eyed and wide mouthed silence.

At that stage my father would have raised a glass of dry white wine in their direction with a cheerful smile and headed inside to get lunch started.

Must see movie - 'True Grit' Trailer HD

This looks like a Shitsake type of movie and worth seeing.
The dude is the dude.

All that glitters is not gold...

On the morning of my vasectomy I decided to have a good scrub.

As I have said, it seemed like a considerate professional courtesy, and if I was a dentist, gynaecologist, or hairdresser, it was a courtesy I would certainly want extended to me.

Being a considerate householder and environmentally sensitive soul, and seeing that we were in the midst of water restrictions, it made sense to jump into the kids’ bath water after they had their morning bath.

After all, it wasn’t like I was planning a long soak, just a quick squatting scrub and rinse. A last minute mouth rinse as it were.

After I had finished and dressed, I was in the kitchen at the counter making a cup of coffee, when my wife, who had also used the bathwater before me, shouted from the bedroom where she was changing.

These were her exact words. Verbatim.

“You better check your pubes, I have got a whole lot of the kids glitter in mine” (sic)

A simple sentence for some.

Not for me. Within hours I was going to have my pubic hair very closely scrutinized and some of it shaved off by complete strangers.

Then, that self same area was going to be the focus area of a surgeon at a time when he needed his full wits and concentration about him.

This tit bit seemed a tad important.

Let me explain, one of the kid’s had got a birthday present from my mother who had given them a big jar of kiddies bubble bath. And inside, suspended in the bubble bath, were thousands of cut out foil shapes. Hearts, stars, crescent moons all in multicoloured, shiny, glittering foil. They were a kids delight and made the bath water glitter like the night sky as they sparkled suspended in the bath water.

It was these that my wife was talking about.

I whipped down my pants and went through my pubic hair better than any grooming chimp.

Eleven pieces (11). One more than ten.

Can you imagine the nurses shaving me for my vasectomy and finding eleven glittering foil cut outs of stars, hearts and crescent moons? In pink, gold and silver?

Can you imagine the doctor, about to make his first incision?

“My, this one has made a real effort!”

I felt giddy and a little dry mouthed at the nervous thought of what might have gone wrong.

If my wife hadn’t called out her warning to me, I would have lay back on the operating table, opened my legs and had the nursing staff find my pubic hair knotted with glittering pink foil stars.

I still wonder if they would have said anything.

I know my wife wishes she hadn’t.

Snip, snip

His hands felt cool and soft.

We had only just met and yet here I was.

On my back, my nuts in another mans hands.

It actually wasn’t too uncomfortable until he asked me how my father was.

“So, how is your dad?”

Dude, you have my nuts in your hand, your are squeezing them. I want to keep this clinical. Detached. Unknown.

I do not want to be having a discussion with you about my father while my courting tackle lies vulnerable in your hands.

It just feels wrong.

“Ja, cool thanks………”

After the physical we had a quick chat about what having the snip would mean and when he seemed certain that I was sure about going ahead he booked me in.

“Come back next week”

All my mates used words like “painless” and “quick local” and “in and out”

Walk in the park. Breeze.

The next week, after a good bath, douche and generally thorough scrotum scrub (it’s a professional courtesy, like brushing your teeth before a dentists visit, or washing your hair before getting a haircut), I headed off to Constantiaberg Medi-Clinic.

It was a bit of a production line. You check in, Do a bit of paperwork. Get shown to a changing cubicle and get given a locker for your clothes, and then you change into one of those shitty, psychologically scarring hospital gowns.

No jocks. Hanging loose.

Made worse in that you keep your shoes on.

So you end up looking like a complete doos.

You know it. The nurses know it.

That was all okay, no big deal, but then you go through to the waiting room.

There are half a dozen of you waiting in a line.

All dressed like dooses. All looking sheepish.

Except.

Except some a-holes bring their wives and mothers along.

What the shitsake is with that?

Now I have to wait, semi naked, my nuts barely hidden by a very high hospital gown, and opposite me, someones wife is reading a magazine because he needed his hand held.

It was like waiting for your drivers licence eye test.

As someone leaves, you all shift up a seat.

The okes at the back and in the middle are a laugh a minute.

The jokes are flying thick and fast.

“I’m just going to hold the Doc’s nuts in my hand while he does the op, and say: you don’t hurt me, I won’t hurt you”

Good one man. Chuckle chuckle. Chortle chortle.

But as the okes made it to the front of the queue they got more and more quiet.

And the okes right in the front have got that look you get just before you bungee jump.

The look that says. “I’m sure its safe. Lots of okes have done this before.”

No worries.

Right?

And then its your turn.

A wheelchair. Shitsake, no.

“Sorry sir. Hospital regulations.”

You arrive rather cowed in the operating room where two cheerful nurses are there to greet you.

“Ah, howzit.”

You sense your charm will have no effect here.

On the bed, on your back, staring at the ceiling.

Your gown is lifted, the disposable razors are out. The two of them are chatting about mundane daily things while they lather and shave your nuts.

You feel a bit left out. You pretend you don’t care and stare up at the ceiling.

All this will pass.

And then while this is happening, the door opens and in walks nurse number three.

Hello! We are actually busy here. A knock would be nice!

She smiles a greeting at me and then starts having a loud conversation with the other two nurses. My two nurses. While they are shaving my nuts.

No kidding.

For shitsake. This isn’t a frigging porno shoot.

And the door!

For shitsake the door!

Ag no man! She left the door open to the passage.

I can actually see an orderly walk past.

I lie there, sensitive and vulnerable, having my nuts shaved by a pair of nurses, while another nurse is having a visit and a chat, all down at the business end.

As she leaves the doc arrives.

Professionalism personified.

There were two painful bits.

The first was eye watering and felt like he was pushing the needle to give me a local anaesthetic deep into each nut.

It felt like what I imagine someone closing your nut in a vice would feel like.

Sore. Aching.

My knees jerked up into the air.

He calmly put his hand on my knee  and pushed them down again.

The second was when he started the actual op. It was a bit soon for my liking and stung.

“Lets slow down” I suggested.

He did. A bit. Down tools, chat for two minutes, then back into the fray.

Then it was plain sailing, Easy peasy.

Finished the op. Got changed. Stayed for the prerequisite cup of tea and a sarmie. And then off straight back to work.

Hero.

A couple of days of dull pain was all that was left afterwards.

And walking up the stairs like John Wayne for a week.

And the scars of the indignity.

So go for it okes.

It is a piece of piss. A walk in the park. You could do it in your sleep.

Good dog! Good boy! Come here daddy’s boy!

Saturday morning, a summer day.
My wife is out and I am at home with all three kids.
It is pleasant.
Quiet.
Too quiet.

Daddy! The future horse doctor screamed.
The future wildlife film maker is covered in poo!

Whatthehellcouldshemeanandwhatthehellisgoingon

I dash to the source of the scream.
And Shitsake, so he was.
Looking guilty, doe eyed, and covered in crap.
It was everywhere.
How can a three year old little guy have so much shit all over him? I mean, it was down his legs, on his feet.
He was naked except for a soiled T-shirt.
It was retching time.
I gagged a couple of dry bile burps.

Then I acted swiftly and decisively, and with the minimum of contact (by prodding and waving with my fingers) I managed to herd him into the bathroom without actually touching him, and I got a shower going and him in it.
There were some shitty footprints en route to deal with later, and there had been a bit of finger contact getting the T-shirt over his head (triple gag), but he was in a stream of warm water and had an older sister to watch him, problem one was solved.

Then my attention moved to where his deposit would be.
This was not going to be easy or pleasant.
I moved gingerly downstairs, tip-toeing from room to room as though expecting to confront a burglar.
My middle daughter shadowing me, a disgusted grimace on her face. Boys!
My eldest daughter had left her post at the shower and upsettingly looked rather gleeful.
I sensed that delicious feeling kids get when there is kak on the go, and they are in the clear. For a no-TV house, this was major entertainment.

We searched the house, we searched the garage, the searched the deck, the driveway.
Everywhere. Every room.
No poop. Anywhere.
But you could smell it badly. It was hiding somewhere for sure.
I was completely flummoxed.

I headed back to the shower where the fruit of my loins was luxuriating unperturbed in his steaming shower. He was having a ball.
I noticed that he had started drawing little soap motives on the glass of the shower door.
He didn’t seem to be experiencing a world of stress.

Listen little buddy, where did you poop little man.
I can’t find your poop anywhere.

Then he looked me square in the eye. Straight on.
No blinking or grimacing and he said what no loving father should ever hear.
Slowly, clearly and perfectly enunciated.

“I poo’d in your car daddy…”

I bolted down the stairs and towards the driveway.
The future vet had beaten me to the car though.
As I ran the final meters I saw her reach the car, look inside, and then turn around with her hand over her mouth doubling up.
Shitsake.

It was bad. It was terrible. It was confined to the driver’s seat.
My seat. The one I put my arse in each time I drive.
Godinheavenwhatwashethinking
That was a seriously satisfying bowl movement.
He must have lost a couple of kilograms right there and then had a little dance on it, painted a bit with it, and then finally squished it a bit more before wandering into the house.

My wife was completely unsympathetic on the phone.
I was on my own.

And then a gift from up above.
I glanced down at my ankles and who should be there but my old matey Sedgwick.
A reasonably disgusting Jack Russell with a penchant for poop.
I had endured his disgusting habits for the past ten years. He owed me.

And that my friends was that.

I popped him in, closed the door and headed upstairs to get the guilty party out of the shower.

Once he was done and dried and dressed I headed hopefully downstairs and out to the car.

A smiling, grinning, grunting little doggy face was at the window.

His entire body wagging with his tail in glee.

He had vacuumed up the entire load and then licked everything spotless.

Good dog! Good boy! Come here daddy’s boy! Good doggy! Brave Dog!

The most feared moment of your teenage life - the unwanted boner....

You are 16. Sitting in class.

Your name gets called out to come up and do your Afrikaans mondeling. All good. You are up next.

Feeling confident.

Feeling, feeling, oh-oh. Suddenly. Shitsake. Where did that come from.

A boner from hell.

Think sad thoughts, think sad thoughts, think sad thoughts.

It’s not working.

C'mon, piss off boner. Begone.

The clock is ticking, the other oke is winding down.

You are about to enter shitsake street.

Almost worse. The TF (the travelling fat)

This just needs a car trip to get going.

Even a very short car trip.

With your mother.

To school.

Where you have to get out and walk away as if nothing is up.

When it most very definitely is up.

Or the train. Click-clack, click-clack.

Its your stop. All the Rustenberg and Westerford girls are watching you.

You can’t not get off. You also sure as shitsake can’t stand up though.

You clutch your satchel to your stomach.

Sure, nobody noticed.

Or the girlfriend fat.

Holding hands will do it.

It will happen on your first date.

“Come on, the movie’s over, lets go.”

“Let’s not.”

“Let’s wait a bit, I like to watch the credits.”

To the end. The very end.

You are sitting on a rock on the beach with her next to you.

You are in a very thin swimming costume.

“Lets play beach bats” she says.

“Lets not!” screams your brain, “Oh please lets not.”

Why are you doubled over she asks.

You have developed a very profound interest in your toes.

Remember school speedo’s. Needing to get out the pool. Wondering how.

Shitsake. Enough already.

Anything with the risk of being bust by a family member was bad.

Life used to be like a sitcom. Mom, Dad and us kids on the couch watching Magnum PI.

TC is talking to Magnum.

In the background boobs are bouncing and flouncing. Oh oh.

Please take this through to the kitchen my boy.

Jislike. Not now. Not in my PJ’s. Not looking like a tent.

Your only option is to pretend to sulk and complain that your sister can take it.

All you are really doing is playing for time.

Your toes are curling up in your stokkies.

Imagine if your sister saw.

Standard nine and you have just finished a wet and muddy hockey practice. It is getting quite late but the school rules are that you have to go home in blazer and tie. You are covered in mud and sweat so you shoot though for a quick shower before the long walk to the train station.

Your mate Steven is in the shower, his back is facing you.

Howzit man.

He jumps, his body shocked.

Skaam. Very, very skaam.

You can check he was just showering. Poor oke.

He is dying and blushing and looks like he wishes it was all a dream.

You don’t know where to look.

You pretend you haven’t seen any thing and you duck.

Fast.

The most unthinkable. The credibility killer. The school gym shower fat.

Never had one. Still get a dry mouth thinking about it.

Aparently never ever wrestle.

Ever.

Shout out for men in red overalls

Driving to work and suddenly I can see (in my head) a guy in a red overall,jumping out of helicopters.
Remember when: "Skattejag" was on with Scot Scott.

"Stop die hoorlosie, ek het die skat, ek het die skat!"

Legendary.

Mid Life Nostalgia

If you grew up in Cape Town and are now middle aged or thereabouts, you'll love this.
If you can't speak Afrikaans you are screwed though.

I miss a lot list....

I miss taking a leak and not having to worry that you have a 50:50 chance of getting a teaspoon of left over pee dribble down you leg as you exit the toilet.

I miss sleeping through the night without any kids to wake you up coughing, crying, peeing or sleep walking. (and I'm only looking for eight hours)

I miss sleeping in late in silence.

I miss taking only 10 minutes to get ready in the morning. Without kids lunches, uniforms, bickering and stalling.

I miss playing 36 holes on a Sunday if I felt the urge.

I miss playing golf. Period.

I miss cruising straight to La Med on a Friday afternoon after work with a beer in the car and the excitement of an unknown evening ahead.

I miss eating Dagwood's sitting in the gutter at Greasy's in Mowbray with the prostitutes, street people and cops at 3am on a Saturday morning.

I miss bunking lectures for the beach.

I miss streaking from Rhodes Memorial to Kenilworth Centre and knowing I could run that far without having a heart attack.

I miss heading off on three week holidays to Namibia in my little Opel 1300 with no plan, no car seats and no kiddies snacks.

I miss traffic cops who actually had to stop you to give you a fine.

I miss never having a job, but always having money.

I miss Tuesday nights at Barristers, Fridays at Forries, Saturday parties and Sunday nights at Quay Four.

Only another 12 years till the youngest clears out.

Heckling Suicide

Don't be a doos and heckle a stand up comic