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

Social networks drive social reform and liberties

Governments around the world are crapping themselves as social network sites and especially Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are changing the world in ways that their founders and users never foresaw.

Shit, even I am starting to like Mark Zuckerberg.

The change taking place in Tunisia and Egypt would never have taken place without Facebook and twitter.
Social network sites are feeding and driving social reform and revolution in a way never imagined.

The world has become a smaller place.
A student in Cairo can see, taste and smell the freedom a student, say, in Cape Town might enjoy, and want it. And demand it as his right.
And once you have given somebody a taste of freedom, you cannot take it back. It is like Pandora's box. It is out, and it's not going back. Ever.
It is seared in your memory.
Spawning
Once this realization dawns, it spawns. Friends tell friends. Soon every student in Cairo tastes some, wants some.
Now, instead of isolated reformists, reform becomes mainstream. Shit. It's accessible to everybody.
Screw the leftists. Revolutionary and social reform is centrist. It becomes a norm.
Organizing
Need to get a lot of people organized really quickly. Shit.
Facebook and twitter are the new graffiti of the people. But instead of left wing slogans spray painted overnight, we now have digital, instant and spawning graffiti.
Suddenly a lot of people can get organized very quickly.
Remember that old TV shampoo advert "she told two friends, and they told two friends..." and soon the TV screen was full.
Same deal. But at the speed of light.
Monitoring and Moderation
Want to be tried for war crimes? Do something in range of a cell phone.
Suddenly dictators and their lackeys are being filmed and posted. Not so easy to squash a demonstration quietly anymore. You are filmed a hundred times on a hundred phones,and before the tear gas has settled you are on YouTube. For all the world to see. And judge.
Exciting stuff.

But somewhere, someone is sitting and asking "how can we make revenue out of this"
And more scary, someone else is asking themselves "how can we plant and control this effect for our own good"

Both of you piss off.

It doesn't belong to you.
It belongs to us.

Making an important deposit

The smug doctor had said to wait three months and then come through for a deposit BEFORE thinking we were home and dry.
We did the first part, (mostly), and then started to get a little reckless and careless after the three month mark without going through for an actual check.
I mean he said to wait three months, and three months had passed.

And then my wife got very bad morning sickness symptoms.
Very bad.
We had a complete sense of humour failure.
Fingers were pointed. Blame was allocated.
We were gobsmacked and rushed off to get pregnancy tests.
It all felt like Déjà vu. Bad Déjà vu.
Creative excuses were prepared for family and friends.

An agonising 24 hours later we breathed a massive sign of relief. It had just been very bad flu-like symptoms.
But that was that. Test or celibacy.
(I think she was in favour of the celibacy thing,although I might just have been being sensitive)

My wife's sensitive parting words as I headed through to the hospital for the test were along the lines of, "Don't come home to produce a sample and then drive all the way back through again, its a waste of petrol, just do it there. For Pete's sake, don't be a wuss about it, it's no big deal."

Okay. My love.

When a reached the counter I was supposed to sign in at, I realised that a number of other people were there with all sorts of other tests that they needed to run.
I was expected to share a counter with other people.
Shitsake. It was like buying condoms when you were young and innocent. You needed an empty isle.
It felt like there were at least 376 other people waiting at the counter filling in forms in complete silence, a lot of them young school girls and old grannies and a couple of nuns if I remember correctly. Then a sever looking nurse with a booming voice called out over all their heads asking me what I wanted.
Shitsake.
I am sure I remember them all stopping what they were doing and silently turning to face me.
As softly as I could I stammered out "I am here to give a sperm sample"
"What!" she boomed.(cow)
"I need to give a sperm sample to check that my vasectomy has worked"
(bitch)

She gave me a small plastic vial with a screw top and very loud instructions, over the heads of the waiting masses.
I left quickly.

Okay, now the easy part. We've done this a million times eh, no biggie.
Mmmm, where to go?

I ended up in a toilet cubicle in the downstairs loo.
I tried. I really, really tried.
But it smelled like a hospital. Shitsake, it was a hospital.
The cubicle had those awful doors that don't come all the way to the floor.
And worst of all was the foot traffic.
Who knew a hospital loo had that many people wandering in and out.
Every time I got anything approximating a rhythm going, crash, in walked the next prick.
I tried till it got uncomfortably sore.
It just wasn't going to happen.

I stared at my new friend, the empty plastic cup.
Hello little empty matey.
We needed more us time.
So I zipped up and went searching for somewhere more romantic and secluded.
I found an upstairs loo on the corner of the third floor. This had to be quieter.
In I went and we started on the second act.

At one stage I thought I might be getting somewhere when the door opened and somebody came in and took a noisy leak in the cubicle next to mine and stopped the entire performance.
It was worse than a cell phone ringing loudly in a quiet cinema.
I tried one last time (bloody hell, my arm was aching by then)
I was making some progress when I had a kak thought. A very kak thought.
Security camera's. What if they had security camera's and there were at that moment,security guards, men and women, all crowded around a monitor laughing their arses off.
I looked around wildly.
There were no visible camera's, but I had seen The Bourne Identity, just because I couldn't see them, didn't mean that they weren't there.
It was too much.
It was time to bring down the curtain.

Later that day I got home with and empty cup and a serious timing issue for the next day.
You try and produce a sample, getting three kids ready for school, all in a shitty mood, without being bust.
With a wife who is harried and rushed and looks at you like a pervert.
"Do you really have to do that now?"
And then, as per instructions, keep it warmly wrapped in your pocket during the school run.
It was an experience I wouldn't like to go through again.

And I can only wish it on my closest friends.

Up the elephant's bum

Do elephants vomit through their mouths, or through their trunks…?



As it would at a 40th birthday, once the tequila’s had come out, the conversation moved to Tunisia.
“What is in Tunisia?” asked the doctor.
“Carthage!” said Nikki, “I’ve been there, it’s where Hannibal launched his attack over the Alps.”
“Are you sure” asked the stud.
“Oh yes”, said Nikki, “he came up through Spain”
(Nikki is a man by the way, odd name for a man, but then he’s a pom, so there you go.)

“Bullshit!” We all replied, how did he get his army across the sea.
“Boats you idiots”
“What about the elephants?”
“Bigger boats”

“So, what if they got seasick?”

Mmmmmmm
Five minutes quite thought, quiet sipping of drinks.

“Hey, how do elephants vomit?” we obviously wondered next, “through their mouths or through their trunks?”

Mmm. Not sure. Good question.
Ten minute debate. No consensus reached.

Let’s have another tequila, eh.

“Hey”, said the handsome charming one, “Talking of elephants, I once saw a YouTube clip of a man with his head up an elephants arse.”

“Bullshit agent.”
“No really.”
“No, Bullshit.”
“No really okes, I did, I bet you I did”

I bet you a good book that I would enjoy reading.

So here you are you middle aged bastards.

Pay up, buggers.

What are those dad? - Thats easy buddy, those are daddy's nuts

“What those are for dad?”

Dad's who bath with their kids are asking for trouble.
My own advice to any dad with young kids is as follows:
Never bath together. Ever. No matter how young they are.
Instil a Victorian sense of decorum to anything bathroom related.
Being naked in a bath with three year olds leads to all sorts of awkward questions:
What are those dad?
Easy one buddy, they are Dad’s (reasonably good looking) nuts.
This quickly goes down hill as the dreaded pre-curser gets asked: “What are they for?”
Soon you are at a dead end -“How do the dads get the seeds into the moms?”

This is when you submerge to rinse off the shampoo.

Seven years olds also can get their facts awkwardly mixed up, a few years ago, our now ten year old proudly understood that at birth the woman’s body had all the eggs she would use in her lifetime stored up and ready for release.
This was three decades sooner than her father understood this.
She also, via her mother and school, had a broad understanding that there was an act called sex.
However, she was under the impression that the mother got “topped up” once by the father, and in the same way eggs were regularly released, so too were the all important seeds.
One top up and you were good to go.

(A point that mothers the world over probably wish was true, no doubt.)

She was aghast to realise one day, after learning this was not the case and counting her siblings, that her parents had had sex at least three times.
With a disgusted face, she cringed out, “Gross dad, do you mean you and mom have had sex more than once? That’s disgusting!”
She was pretty upset about this. Her mother is probably starting to see it that way too.
(What the hell did she think they had done to earn an hour of TV with treats on Sunday mornings?)

Anyway, no more of this I should think.
Living in a rural area for a year has cleared all this up.

Our kids have now seen penises in all shapes and sizes.
Penises no longer raise the slightest interest.
Bulls, donkeys, mules and horses seem to live in a constant state of readiness.

My kids have seen goats, dogs, and even sheep having sex.
Cats on heat prowl around all night.
Chickens might be quick and forgo foreplay, but even they appear on the penis radar.

“Dad, the rooster is mating with Pamela Anderson (this is our chicken Pamela Anderson, and not THE Pamela Anderson), and her bum is all open and everything”
Gorgeous.
Followed by my then five year old daughter asking, “Shame, isn’t that sore?”
I am not kidding you when I tell you that when we were playing “the cloud game” a while ago, when one of my wife’s offspring said, “Look at that cloud, it looks like two goats mating”

More positive teaching comes in the form of the chickens and their eggs.
One of our chickens had 11 chicks hatch while the other hen, Mr Snuffles (hey, the kids chose the names), had been sitting on another 12 eggs for the past two weeks, and these also started hatching. This was very exciting and the kids made a lot of trips to the coop to check on progress, and at one stage we brought an egg inside for them to watch it hatch on the bed.

All very educational.
All good.

Also, with so many cute calves, sheep, goats and foals around, they are getting a very rounded and positive education.

One low point of note.
We had a very old decrepit dog called Sedgwick. Who smelled of faeces.
That is not the low point in itself.

The fact that we twice caught him trying to mate with our very startled six month old kitten, Cheetah was far more concerning.
It really happened.
I think this could safely be described as the low point in any dog’s life.
“Dad! Dad! Sedgwick is mating with cheetah”

And by golly gosh, so he was.
We even had time to get a photo to prove it.
This is sex education you can’t get in any school.
And I think I can safely assume that I will never have to broach the Birds & the Bees again.

Afrikaaners do have a sense of humour - Die Antwoord - Zef Side.

Never mind the NATS, today, Afrikaans people do have a (wicked) sense of humour.
These okes are classic South African. Cape Town. Bellville.
Six months ago they would have freaked all you Kirstenbosch concert go-ers out.
But now you too can love their irony, their sound, and most of all that 3.2 million Americans don't find them ironic.
Its like doubly rich and funny and cool.
Play loudly in your open plan office.

Local is often Lekker

So this year we should listen to more Sefrikan music.
It's offen fokken lekker, and it offen comes from fokken Cape Town.

Time to Brush up on Local Music - Jack Parow - Cooler as Ekke

My armpit looked like the vagina of a very old porn star with a bad shaving rash

It started out as a swollen gland under my armpit.
"Nice one" I thought, just what I feel like.
Then it didn't go away. For five days.
It just got bigger and redder and a shit load more painful.

Oh skaam! A boil.
Who gets boils at 42? I had like one, ever, when I was 13.
What is this. Latent puberty.
You have to be kidding me.

Then on day six, the discomfort turned to pain.
Like can't sleep at night pain.
Like 3 myprodol pain.
And the boil got bigger and redder and madder.
I was crying. I was wrecked.
No head.
My kids were looking at me writhing on the floor with no respect at all.
"Boils" - "we have them for breakfast"
Their eyes all screamed soft-cock at me.

Then I pulled the ultimate of all kak moves.
Shaving your pit. Gals do it. Nobs do it. Fetish freaks do it. Now I had done it too.
It didn't look very sexy.
In the mirror, my shaved armpit looked like the vagina of a very old, very flabby, very used porn star. With a bad shaving rash. And in the middle, a big, angry, swollen tit sticking out.

In my moment of greateast pain I cut 40cm off the end of the garden hose, stuck one end on my new third nipple, and sucked on the other end. Hard.
Honest no shit.
You try doing that with only one hand, in pain, with your other arm above your head, seeing everything in reverse in a mirror.
All I got were three perfectly round. Very painful and deep blue love bites. And lots of bruising.

At last Mount Fuji got a snow cap.
Squeezing started in earnest three times per day.
Buckets came out. First puke yellow, and then dirty grey and finally brown. Faeces brown. Yuk.
And each drop was sore.
But the hole is tiny. Too tiny. I need more action.

Day eight and I rush through to the Doc at 19h45 pleading for it to be cut open.
Grit your teeth says the little shit and then without any further ado he stabs the sharp end of a closed pair of surgical scissors into the hole, and then opens them and rips them out. Geeze. My toes curled and I screamed a little 5 year old school child like scream.
Double strength ant-biotics and be a man.

Two days later I am back at the doctor.
The pain shooting through my veins is blood poisoning.
I have a temperature, aching joints, sore muscles and a fever.

I look at my kids with new respect.
My wife has had to squeeze my suppurating porn star vagina nipple armpit each night.
In one foul stroke I have managed put her off hetero, gay and porn star sex.

Its not a lot to be proud of, but it is something.

New Years Resolution # 7 - I will learn to surf by the end of December 2011

Toilet Etiquette

Some questions only have one right answer.
So when you reappear from the loo after a quick pre-movie leak and you are about to dip your hand into a box of shared popcorn, and you are asked - “Did you wash your hands?
The only correct answer to give is: “Come on! Of course!”

But let me tell you.
Off the record.

There is no bloody chance I washed my hands in there.
Yes it is a beautiful cinema, and yes, the bathrooms are immaculate, but none the less, it is a PUBLIC toilet.
That means a lot of people use it.
People I don’t know. People I don’t want to know.
Some of them odd looking.
And that means Warlock is most certainly the cleanest thing in there.

I have a common sense golden rule of public toilet use.
Only touch yourself.
Realise this - your dick/penis/cock (Warlock) is the most germ free area in there.

Only open the door with your elbow or your foot. Don’t touch the door handle or the germ laden metal door panel around it.
You don’t take the door off its hinges, just a gentle nudge with your foot will do.

Once inside use the urinals whenever you can, just walk in, unzip and get things done.
Be careful about peeing on the blue tablets or the ice cubes and trying to get them to melt in one spot, you might get some splash back, and nothing will take your mind off the opening credits more than the thought that somebody else’s putrid piss is slowly burning a hole on your skin.
If they are not automatic, then when you flush use your elbow, or don’t flush at all.
Make sure you don’t touch anything with bare skin.

Now, if you have to use a stall take extra precautions.
Again, nudge the door open with your foot (you wear slip slops at your peril, hippy creep)
I can’t say this enough.
Do not touch anything in there.
Lift the lid and the seat with the toe of your shoe until they are resting in the upright position.
Have your leak, write your name, and get it over with.
Now, afterwards, if it is a press button flush or a lever, use your foot, or if in a long sleeve shirt, your elbow again, is also allowed.

Here’s where most of us eff up. Don’t wash your hands on the way out. A million urine and faeces covered hands have been on that tap before you. It is wet, and moist and warm. You are guaranteed to pass a shitsakes infection to Warlock from which he might not recover.

Leaving is more difficult than arriving. The door opens against you.
But don’t slack off now.
And for shitsake don’t use the door handle. Think of all those shitty, wet infected hands on the door handle before you. It’s frigging gross. Don’t do it.
Wait for someone to come in, or wait for someone to leave, and then catch the bottom of the door with your foot.
If you get stuck and you don’t want to miss the previews waiting for someone to come in, then go for the top of the door. Carefully.
I find you can generally get enough traction with your fingertips to swing it open.

Exit calmly. As you approach your partner wipe your hands on the back and side of your pants as though the drier didn’t work properly. If required, hold them up and blow on them and add a “tsk, tsk – bloody hand driers never work properly”

Enjoy the popcorn secure in the knowledge that you have done your bit to combat the spread of germs and vile venereal disease, and give thanks that you aren’t a woman who had to sit, or even worse, that you didn’t need to do a number two.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Chaps.
We need to deal with a few wardrobe issues.

Listen carefully:
Chino’s. Are. Out. Of. Fashion.
You remember how we used to go to weddings as a bachelor in the nineties and get drunk and feel idiotic bunching up to catch the garter.
Well, back then we did wear Chino’s. With brown shoes (brogues) and a (normally) blue shirt, and a lame tie. (Our only one)
And back then it was okay.
We were young. We had no clue.
It’s not okay anymore. We need to move on.
Look down. Please tell me you are not wearing Chinos and brown shoes.
If you are, let’s agree to make this the last time. Okay.

Ruby jerseys, Football tops, Soccer Strips.
You can wear your mock Springbok jersey – but only if you are going to a live game.
You can wear your Manchester United strip – but only if it is a massive game and a whole pack of you are meeting at one of your houses for the game.
You can wear faux sporting gear – but it must be a big game. Like an international. A world cup. A World Series. The FA Cup. Something like that.
It is not okay to wear a rugby/soccer/football top when you go out shopping on a Saturday morning. Yes, I know someone mistook you for Joel Stransky in Cavendish Square Shopping Mall in 1994. But that was 15 years ago. You had more hair then.
And when you go out for Friday night drinks. It is NOT okay to wear your English Football Jersey with Beckham’s name on the back. Nobody will mistake you for the actual player on the team. Nobody actually thinks you know him. Not then. Certainly not now.
You took their posters down off your bedroom walls. Now, please stop wearing their strips.
Don’t do it. It gives us all a bad name.
(And that Varsity third fifteen rugby jersey you still fit into. That counts too)

Here are some basics for all of us about Jeans. We can wear jeans if we are over 40, but never under any of the following circumstances:
• Never (ever) wear your jeans above your belly button. Or even on your belly button for that matter. Guess where your hips used to be and try and get them in that general vicinity.
• You cannot tuck your shirt into your jeans. Any shirt. Ever. You will look like a knob.
• Don’t wear work shoes with Jeans. You think you look like an Italian model. You actually look like the guy from The Office. Polished shoes and jeans = not good.
• Never (ever) ((ever)) iron your jeans. A sharp crease down the front of your jeans? “Yes. I am trying to look informal. And Yes. I do look like a dick.”
• You know when you look down and see some sock between the bottom of your jeans and the top of your shoes?
• Well. Unless you said “No”, either lengthen them, lower them, or buy new ones.

If this is you, and it probably is. Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s all of us. Just keep it tight tomorrow when you get dressed. And if this isn’t you, there is definitely someone in your immediate circle of friends it is.

Forward them this.
They’ll thank you.
They don’t know any better yet.

The famous Five go to Adventure Island

Thanks to my five members. (Don’t feel alone - I can see from my hidden stat counter that there are thousands, maybe even hundreds, and possibly even scores more of you)
(This includes counting those visits that lasted under 4.35 seconds, (odd? – I have been trying to think of words that are spelled like shitsake, that might accidently get you to the blogsite. And I am only slightly hurt that once you did arrive accidently, I couldn’t keep you captivated for longer than 4.35 seconds) (Oh, and my mum, who checks in five times each day and keeps the stats ticking over nicely)

Back to the Famous Five. (Don’t get too protective or settled. By my calculation, should my blog continue to spawn itself virally over Face book, Twitter and Google, at its current level, by November the 18th you might well be the Secret Seven)

I have managed to sell your details to seven mobile phone companies, thirteen stock-broking firms based in Taiwan, four Time-share companies, and a gentleman from the Office of the President of Nigeria, who has $42 million dollars that he needs to transfer internationally.
(I am also in negotiations with the “Big Three” life insurance companies)

I didn’t get as much as I thought for the sale of your information. Certainly not enough for brekky. So we will need to take a rain-check on my offer of a free champagne breakfast at Café Roux in Noordhoek for every membership.

Instead, take your entire family for a balmy, sunny, summer, Sunday breakfast at Café Roux (go with the eggs Benedikt, by the way), at your own expense. Then reimburse yourself when the money comes through from the Office of the President of Nigeria.
(This is a special deal, and it is only for the first five members I am afraid)

Man Dates - Ag sweet, you feel anxious and nervous

The advent of middle age moves a lot of men inadvertently and involuntarily into the area of man-dates.
What used to be rowdy, large group get together, transitions into ever smaller groups as guys get married and family life kicks in.
Chances are your very first man-date will be an accident.
Six of you arranged to meet. Four of you cancelled. Two of you felt awkward.
Your first real man-date.
Ag Sweet. You feel anxious and nervous.
To help you through this transition and allay any fears about your masculinity, here are the basic do's and don’ts about man-dating.

Going to see a movie is okay, but, it can't be art-house.
It has to be main stream.
Some cult classics like The Big Labowski or even The Blues Brothers are acceptable, but to be completely safe stick with something mainstream. There is a 75% chance your date is not into anything more sophisticated than a car chase and a shoot out. Think about him and keep him happy.
Going to see a movie might well be okay. Sharing popcorn definitely isn't. This is a mega big no-no.
Buy and eat your own popcorn.
Dipping into your date’s popcorn seriously mustn’t happen. There is too high a chance of awkward and accidental hand contact. Regardless of your open mind, this is a pressure situation. Just don't do it.
And don't offer to buy him anything either, certainly not on your first date anyway. Buy your own. Eat your own.
For obvious reasons I shouldn’t even need to mention slush-puppies and shared straws (think bumping foreheads over the same cup)

Meals before and after a movie are a tricky one.
It's okay to have a beer beforehand, probably even a burger. Coffee afterwards though, can be a little awkward and intimate. Especially if it’s late and the crown has thinned out.
Meeting for coffee before a movie though is no problem. But don't spoil it by ordering cake. Especially never (ever) share cake (or any meal for that matter).
I once had a man-date where we shared a slice of cake, and we only had a one fork. Very, VERY awkward.
Be careful how you sit. You can put him under a lot of pressure. Try not to, and never (ever) order anything for your date if he is not at the table. That’s his job. Not yours.
An important point to note is to avoid ambiance restaurants. Ideally you want to be hitting burger joints. The most sophisticated I would recommend would be a sushi bar. If you see candles. Leave pronto.

This brings us to another very important point.
Leaving at the end of the date.
Avoid the awkwardness of saying good-bye in the car park. Leave separately from the cinema or wherever you are and head off in your own direction. Immediately.
Trust me. Nothing is going to be more awkward than standing in front of each other in a deserted parking lot, wondering how to say goodbye.
A casual hand slap - handshake combination as you leave, with a greeting thrown over your shoulder is where you want to be at. Not staring awkwardly at each other standing next to the front door of his car.

Take it easy. Don’t rush things. There will be plenty of future dates.

MOVIE CRIT - SALT

Just seen Angelina Jolie in SALT.
What a load of crapeola.
Remember that guy when you were 13. The one you secretly felt sorry for because he was never picked for team.
The guy who was really skinny and ran in an uncorordinated way.
Well that guy. Even he would have kicked her arse.
Do not bother to watch this movie.
Poor acting and watching a stick figure try to come accross as an arse kicking agent was jsut so very badly done.
A real crapster.

The Refridgerator

Christmas a couple of years ago and my parents, who live in Betty’s Bay, (about an hour and a half out of Cape Town) had been working hard to get us up there over Christmas and New Year.
Well actually in October they were working hard at getting us up there, but by the beginning of December they were back peddling a bit.
Parents are brilliant like that. They dress everything for your benefit.
Once the reality of having two adults, three grandchildren, a forth “other” child, and two dogs, to share their two bedroom cottage had sunk in, the phone calls started.

“My boy, we thought you chaps would be much happier in your own place so we have rented the next door house from the neighbours. Now you can be completely independent and do your own thing.”

In fact the plan had been to dump all the kids and the dog with them, under the guise of grandparent bonding and shut ourselves up in one of the rooms to read and sleep and rest. Being independent in a separate house with all my children and pets was moving too far from the plan for our liking.

So it was that when we arrived there on Christmas day we were booked into the cottage next door which we had kindly been given the use of by the elderly neighbours. After a glass or three of welcoming of champagne had blotted out most of the memory of the kids screaming on the trip out, my wife and I started to carry our bags and all the Christmas gifts, from the car into the neighbours rented cottage.

But here’s the thing. In the kitchen of this cottage, was dilapidated fridge, with the remnants of a set of fridge magnets strewn across the front of it. You know. The ones with the words where you are inspired to write poetry and flowery prose. Except this set is so decrepit it only has about a tenth of the words.

Temptation is too hard to resist. Champagne has stirred my creative juices. I do what anybody under the circumstances would have done. I open the batting with a quick, crisp single, a clean and gentle “your crack smells like fish”
Not too bad with the words I had to choose from. Creative and clever.

As I pass my wife (who I love) on the way to the car for more bags I smile and proudly tell her to check out the fridge poetry.

Now my wife is amazing, and out of respect to her I won’t tell you what she wrote. Suffice to say she upped the stakes and gave me a very proud grin when she passed me on her next trip to the car.

Things deteriorated from there. Eventually we were both in stitches and giggling like teenagers. I ended off with a magnificent eight or nine word sentence that included the words “dark, hole, moist, smell and a few others”
It was actually not as smutty as it sounds. And I was (disturbingly) proud of how few words were left and how much sense the sentences actually made. (Writing this I have no idea where the children were. Certainly the eldest would have learnt to read by then. In the interests of Child Welfare let me state that the magnets were on the top door. Out of reach and out of sight)

Sadly the holiday week-end then took a bit of a dive. The next afternoon, (seriously and sadly) we got a call that my wife’s Gran had passed away. We decided that she would head back to town immediately, and that it would be better for the kids if I would follow the next day when I had got the kids settled down and the car packed up.
The next few days were obviously filled with the funeral and dealing with the sadness of it all.

And then, almost exactly 10 days later. It whacked me in the face. Shitsake!
The fridge. The magnets. The smut. The neighbours.
Shitsake.
In all the drama of getting back I had completely forgotten to clear the fridge.
It quite literally had the worst, most creatively disgusting smut you can imagine. It was funny to us. But we hadn’t planned for anybody else to see it.

A quick emergency call to my father (ex Michael House and all)
“Hey dad”
“Hi my boy”
“Um, tell me, have the neighbours been back to use the house?”
Fingers crossed. Thumbs held.
“Yes, they are there now, they came back about three days ago”
Shitsake.
“Listen, (I explain to him what we had done), you have to get over there and get it off the fridge”
(The disappointment in his voice. That his son. His very own son had allowed himself to be led astray like that.”
“Too late” he says. The elderly wife has already been over and she had obviously seen it. He just hadn’t known what she was on about. But he definitely remembered her using “pornography” and “fridge” in the same sentence. And they are a very Afrikaans couple and very conservative.
He was so embarrassed for me. He said he apologised a few days later and got a very strained smile out of them.

It wasn’t one of our most defining moments.
And of course last Christmas we got given fridge magnets by half the family.

Boundaries are important

I took the liberty of compiling a short list of boundaries. You might like to cut this out and post it on the fridge if you dare (Please make sure you erase any link to this blogsite. I have quite enough shitsake in my own life already thank you)
Please feel free to personalise it before you put it up.

To my darling (fill in wife’s name here)
In the interests of taking our relationship to a new and exciting level, I think that it is important that we both set some boundaries for each other.
These are meant to make our communication a lot better, our relationship a lot less ambiguous, and ultimately to create a greater sense of intimacy.

1. First off. I will not answer you when you mumble questions to me when you are lying in the bath upstairs and I am doing something (surprisingly important to me) downstairs. I will not grit my teeth and stop what I am doing and slowly walk towards you saying "what?....What?....What?" until I can hear you. Instead, I will simply not answer. You will quickly learn not to do it. Getting annoyed that I can’t hear you will not help.
2. Along a similar vein. Unless it is given me in writing (emails are acceptable), I accept no responsibility for forgotten engagements / important tasks to be done / bills to be paid / school pick-ups to be done / instructions to be followed. You cannot tell me retrospectively that “I told you last week. Remember. You were in the living room. It was 7.13 pm”. It only counts if it was in writing. I have noticed that often when you do tell me these critical things, it is under your breath, while I am having a conversation with two children and trying to juggle performing a task. Even if I say yes, make eye contact and nod my head. I still didn’t hear you. I am just nodding to make the moment get past more quickly so that I can get back to doing the one thing I was doing originally. Before the task. Before the two children. The original thing. My head is still there. It never left. I am nodding, but I cannot hear you.
3. Getting to first base is never going to work. When I say that it will it is not strictly accurate. In the interests of honesty you need to know that I am wired differently to you. I cannot stop until the match is over. If I am fit, I will sometimes be able to go into extra time. Perhaps even a penalty shoot out. At which stage I will want to sleep. But I will never be able to stop at first base.
4. There is nothing wrong with my bowels. The loo is quite simply the last spot in the house where I can go and not have three children asking me something at the same time. Yes, I could finish up in three minutes like you. But then I wouldn’t get a chance to read the paper. Would I. I know going to the loo at the kids dinner and bath time is inconvenient. I’m sure it’s just a co-incidence.
5. I understand that you have been hearing the same after dinner stories for the past decade. But the rest of the guests are enjoying them as much as you used to. I could get a new stable of stories, but this would necessitate me going off for four years backpacking around the med and following a principle of free love. I think it will probably work out best if you just try not to get annoyed with the exaggeration. And please try not to correct the stories. Especially not before the punch line.
6. Me doing the same thing wrong five times over a period of seven years is not a pattern. A pattern implies a frequency of occurrence. Smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day is a pattern.
7. You cannot take the best traits of the husbands of all of the women in your book club, and mould them into something I am meant to be. Yes her husband might be financially responsible and stable, but he dances funny and wears his jeans half way between his belly button and his tits.
8. When you come back from book club and know all about the sex lives of all of the other couples in the group, and I then ask you “Shitsake, what did you tell them about our sex life?” And you say “nothing. I didn’t talk about our sex life at all” I don’t always completely believe you.
9. It is actually completely reasonable for me not to get you anything on Valentines day (yes, even not making you a hand made card) when we have specifically and jointly decided not to buy into the shallowness of valentines day.
10. Most importantly, the fact that you have a far longer, far more deep and meaningful list of things I need to work on changing, and that I could only come up with the above nine points is not a reflection on who needs to change more. It simply confirms that you have greater powers of recall. And no boundary in the world will ever change that.

Don't you hate it when....

Don’t you hate it when:

1. It’s 09h15. You have just finished your second cup of coffee at work. All your emails are up to date and your desk is cleared. You feel a strong and satisfying bowl movement coming on. A good coffee-crap. You open the loo door. Shitsake. The cleaning lady is in there and still has 10 minutes of cleaning left. Yes, you could go later, but its hardly going to be as satisfying. Is it?
2. You lie back in the bath getting ready for dinner with friends. You sigh contentedly as the hot water rises up to your ears. Shitsake. Your wife (who you love) shaved her legs and armpits in the bath before you got in. And yes. That is a pubic hair floating next to your cheek.
3. You shave that last and most sensitive area below your nose with a blunt razor.
4. It wasn’t a big argument and it was all the way back in the middle of the afternoon. It is now 11pm and you are half asleep in bed thinking about the rugby match. A half smile on your face. Good win. Your wife (who you love) turns to you in the dark and says, “Are you going to say anything...”
5. Australian commentators say something like this: “There are only two rugby players alive who could have passed a ball like that! And they are both playing for Australia today”
6. Australian rugby commentators commentate.
7. Your 4 year old son gets a funny, guilty look on his face, which you know means that he has just taken a dump in the Virgin Active pool.
8. Kevin Pietersen punches the air after making a century.
9. South African athletes, who have barely been overseas long enough to settle in, speak with a foreign accent.
10. You are working your way through a bag of mixed nuts and shitsake, right at the end you bite down on a bad one that leaves a disgusting aftertaste in your mouth ruining the R18 you have just eaten.
11. You spend all Saturday working through a list of 20 items your wife wanted done. You sweat heroically through 19 of them. Feeling a deep sense of satisfaction. The first thing your wife (who you love) asks when she gets home. Before even saying hello. Is to ask if you had a chance to do the 20th chore you never did. Shitsake. I did all 19 of the others.
12. The pink woman’s razor that you bought your wife (who you love) lies unused in the bathroom cupboard, while your razor is clogged up with armpit and leg hairs.
13. You go away for a long week-end and have to spend Sunday afternoon cleaning up before you leave.
14. You have to choose between either England or Australia losing a match, at any sport. We need a new scoring system where on any given day, both teams can lose badly.
15. Your wife (who you love) thinks that it is hilarious to start sharing intimate details about your (alleged) skidmarks, and other (alledged) bad habits, at a dinner table with 11 friends after her third glass of wine.
16. Your kids spill fruit juice into the trays of your cars back doors, where it evaporates and leaves a sticky pool that is always missed at the carwash.
17. Big middle aged women who smell of cheap lavatory spray, squeeze in next to you on a long flight, and have carrier bags encroaching on your leg room and foot space.
18. You step in dog crap just before getting into the car and there is nobody to swear at or blame.
19. You don’t finish an excellent book by the end of a long week-end away, and you don’t have the nerve to nick it.
20. You let rip with a beauty in the privacy of your office, and your satisfaction is ruined by the book-keeper walking in and asking your advice.
21. You go out with your mates for dinner, have a salad and a glass of water, and they split the bill. Bastards.
22. Your kids inexplicably need to pee 15 minutes from home, on the away leg of a 5 hour car trip, alongside the most dangerous section of freeway in the country.
23. Your wife (who you love) actually makes eye contact with vendors selling things at traffic lights, and your car is soon surrounded by a sea of eager salesmen.
24. You are at your parents for a week-end. You have a new baby. The baby monitor is switched on and the speaker is on loud upstairs in the kitchen, next to where you parents are preparing lunch. Downstairs at the receiver you and your wife are (allegedly) talking dirty and getting heavy. Noise levels rise. The monitor crackles. You both stop what you are doing realising they have heard everything. She definitely said worse things than you did. You blush madly and avoid making eye contact with your parents all afternoon.
25. Its time to leave the dinner party. You have been charming and funny and debonair. Shitsake. You didn’t realise quite how much you had to drink. Your head is spinning. Your legs are weak. You know. You KNOW. That you cannot make it to the door without stumbling. Your wife (who you love) is driving. Which makes it even worse. She is stone cold sober. You are about to enter shitsake street my friend.

42 year old in charge of the pocket money

Admittedly, it might not have been the best parenting in the world.

Sonja was up in Bulungula with the two youngest kids over the two week Easter holiday and I was meant to follow with Skye to join them half way through. As it turned out things were going pear-shaped at work and I couldn't leave. So, much to Skye's disappointment, Sonja and I decided that it made more sense for Skye and I to rather spend Easter in Cape Town.

I planned not to work over the actual Easter Week-end and thought I would spend the time with Skye, doing some father/daughter quality-time activities. It was en route to one of these (a movie and ten-pin bowling) that it happened.

It went down something like this (although I can't swear to anything, as it happened fast)

Sharp eyed daughter: "Look dad, there's a pet shop."
Father: (no comment)
Doe eyed daughter: "Awe, please can I get a hamster?"
Responsible father: "No my love" (your mom will kill us) (Ten year old stuck in fathers body: "Hey that could be cool. No. Bad idea. Hey that could be cool. No bad idea. Hey that could be cool")
Shocked daughter: "Thanks dad, I didn't think you would stop."
Surprised father: "We're just going to have a look my love" (Ten year old stuck in fathers body: "Wow. cool pet shop. Look rabbits")

We end up in front of the hamster cages and I am thinking that, wow, for R10 they ARE cheap.
I thought one would be R20. So obviously I then say:
Then I (the adult and father) say: "Lets take two. A male and a female. Then they can mate"
I mean, it seemed kind of cool at the time and not such a bad idea.

I should have been concerned that the the shop assistant smelled of booze. But it was Easter and I figured well, drunk or not, he knew more than I did about sexing hamsters.
"How old are these I ask"
About two weeks old,", says he of the spirit breath.
Little babies, think I, half a year away from breeding. They'll be dead long before then. My kids'll squash em or drown em or lose em long before then.

42 year old father in charge of pocket money: "We want a male and female please"

Here's the thing. He looked so very confident. Drunk as he was, and we were leaning back to get out of range of his acrid breath, he looked so competent and confident. He stared at their non exisitant genitals, pulled something apart, and dropped a male and female into a box.

Then he conned me into buying sawdust, food, water dispensers, food bowls, and little orange msg hamster snacks.

Done deal. Skip movie. Skip bowling. Head home with hamsters, dig old cage out of storage, and make the house cosy and warm with saw dust and nibble snacks.

She: "this one looks pregnant dad"
Me (patronising): "Hamsters are all fat my love. She's too small to be pregnant, but maybe one day she will have babies"

We go to sleep a warm and loving house, albeit three members short. I am to chicken shit to phone the news through, so send off a short good night sms mentioning two new hamsters instead. No response.

Now. This is the true part. Without guile or exaggeration.

The next morning the fat baby had had five babies and was a proud mother.
Without the compounding of time for the sake of a good story.
One setting and rising of the sun.
When we woke up the next morning we had seven hamsters and not two.

Daughter very excited and phoning her mom with the good news.
Me, not so. Keeping away from my phone I was starting to think this may not be a good idea after all.

The next night when we went to sleep, Skye, having spent half her evening examining the blind, pink and ugly brood, came and told me that the other hamster, the dad hamster, the father hamster, the male hamster, was making a nest and not only that, but his boobs were swollen as well.

Silly irritating child.

The next day. Day two since we bought male and female baby hamsters. The next day the father hamster. The dad. The male. He of the swollen breasts. Well, it decides to have babies too. And not just one. Six of them. Gospel truth. Not a lie in there.

In two days we had gone from two hamsters to thirteen hamsters.

And that was my saving grace. It was that bad, and that unbelievable, it was that shocking, that it was funny.

Epilogue:

The childrens mother got back and immediately decided we were taking all the babies back to the pet shop. The childrens father hid out in the shed.

The childrens father then snuck one of the babies to the snake (this is our actual pet snake that eats live mice), he was figuring that he was saving twenty bucks on petrol going to buy mice, and that these were going back to the pet shop anyway. (however, the sharp eyed children spotted one was missing and the childrens father was forced to run into the garden, dig up some earth, drop some flowers on the mound, and confirmed that one had died and that he had buried it (fingers crossed).
That left 12.

The childrens mother took ten back to the pet shop. (actually, the pet shop was still closed so she left all ten with the owner of the liquor store next door and asked him to give them to the pet shop owner when he got in)
That left 2.

One escaped never to be seen again.
That left 1.

The final one, got out the cage. Was caught by the cat, who brought it downstairs to play with its kill. Was taken away from the cat, by the dog, and was found wet and half dead in the mouth of the dog by the six year old daughter. In tears, her father explains to her that the hamster must have fallen down the stairs and badly injured itself, and the dog was just trying to save its life by bringing it to us it its mouth. We wrapped it warmly and left it comatose next to our bed next to the heater. It made lots of shuffling sounds in the night. In the morning it was stiff as a plank.
That left none.

Last Wednesday I came home with a white rat.

Never give a wallet to a 42 year old man with a 10 year old boy trapped inside his body.