Wednesday, August 17, 2011

At Least It Wasn't The Good Ship Lollipop

First - our readers rock!! Seriously, you lot are bloody magic.After my grumble about not getting books returned no less than five of you emailed offering me a (free) copy of The Walls of Westernfort to replace mine. Thank you folks. That's damn' generous of you all. Restores my faith in humanity, that does.

Next - a site worth checking (I thought about listing all the fics individually but decided I needed to sleep at some point this month *g*) Femslash Ficathon 2011

I thought I'd been lucky. In fact I thought I was going to be lucky enough to escape completely. But no. The trip is over, the heady rush of freedom that the first few days of the summer hols brings has worn off. The kids are starting to get bored.

There I was, working away, just after morning tea-break, minding my own business when a small voice piped up from behind me, "Hello, miss, what's that?? What's it for??". You know that look on the face of the next victim, in a slasher film, when they realise they're trapped in the woods with the mad axeman - well, I know how they feel, my face had that same look.

I thought, "Why me?? There are six of us here, seven if you count the crane driver (he was 20 metres above us in his little cab, well safe from inquisitive kids). Why am I the only one who gets this??" I turned around and said, "It's a mini-digger. It's digging a trench for drainage pipes. Those ones." And I pointed to the nearby sections of pipe, laid ready to drop into the trench.

"What are they for, miss?/"

"See that muddy field down there - well that one and a lot more like it are going to be full of houses in a couple of years. But before we can start the houses we have to make sure the water, gas, electric, and sewer pipes are all in ready for them. These are the sewer pipes."

"They're awfully big, miss."

"Well yeah, there will be a lot of houses, they're going to have a lot of stuff to get rid of, they'll need big pipes to carry it all."

A moment of blessed silence while she thought about it. Then she realised the exact nature of the "stuff". "Ewwww." She stepped back a couple of paces.

"Great," I thought, got rid of her. Nope, wrong again. With the speed and manoeuvrability that only a child possesses in full, she switched tack.

"We had a play last term, before we broke up. I got to sing a song. I could sing it for you. Would you like me to? I'm a good singer. Mummy says so."

If you can imagine what a haddock would look like if you'd just dragged it from the ocean, set it in a chair and asked it to quote Shakespeare, you've probably got a good idea of what I looked like. Mouth hanging open, stunned expression, incapable of coherent speech (or thought). I think I said, "Erm, ah, um, er, ugh." Very articulate. Taking this as an indication of enthusiastic agreement she launched into song, at the top of her voice.

She went through the entire song without any variation in pitch, tone, or volume. The volume would have made a sergeant-major proud. The high-pitched shriek made me sound like a good singer - and I can't carry a tune in a bucket!! I'm not joking - those tones could bend metal. All I could say when she finished was, "Blimey!!"

Unfortunately she mistook that for admiration. She treated me to an encore. And another. I think the United Nations has rules prohibiting things like this, I'm sure they have some mention in their articles regarding torture by way of sound. I hated that song before she started. After her fourth rendition I was ready to kill the writers.

Just before lunch-time it started to rain heavily. I have never been so glad to be soaked in my life!! Her mother appeared - God only knows from where - clutching an umbrella. Given the evil her child had been subjecting me to for the previous 90 minutes I'm surprised there wasn't a flash of smoke and a smell of brimstone. She apologised, and told the child off. "You know you shouldn't bother the nice workers. I'm so sorry, I do hope she hasn't been any trouble."

I was horrified to hear myself reply, "Oh no, no bother at all. She's a nice kid."

I knew she was evil!! Not only did she subject me to the cruel and unusual punishment of bellowing the same song at me five times, she cast a spell and made me be polite!!

"Thank the nice lady, Barbie, and come and wash your hands for dinner."

Barbie?? Did she just call that poor kid Barbie?? No wonder the kid is evil and tortures me with songs. I'd be evil too, if I were called Barbie. I suddenly felt very sorry for her.

She drew herself up to her full height, (which wasn't particularly high) and said, "Mummy, I'm not Barbie, I'm Barbara." She sounded it out carefully. Bar-bar-rah. Then she turned to me an said, "Thank you." and then, "Goodbye."

I said, "Goodbye, Barbara." And she smiled a huge smile and skipped away in the rain.

And you know what?? I missed her.

Didn't miss that bloody song though. "It's a Hard Knock Life"!!

See you next week. Goodnight and may your God/s go with you.

Ze

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)