Wednesday, 1 May 2013

Taking the rap



I was expecting all sorts of things for when Mark came home.  Almost none of them have been realised and instead I’ve been faced by all sorts of different surprises.  Some have been most welcome and warming, others not so much (and no doubt judging from the range of emotions and frustrations recently on display by me I’m sure Mark has his own list to add to the latter).  

One of the things I wasn’t really expecting was having to claim responsibility for my boys’ misdemeanors.  A week after Mark got home we were out doing the weekly grocery shopping.  As I went round, list in hand, trolley at my side, Alby and Mark ran around doing what they could to introduce a bit of chaos into an otherwise mundane day.  They succeeded.  Just as I told Mark not to turn his back on Trouble Monkey, Alby grabbed a bottle of ketchup from the bottom shelf and dropped it on the floor.  Of course it was a glass bottle and, of course, it smashed everywhere. And of course, responsibility for finding the Store Manager and claiming responsibility for the accident lay with me too:  “I’m terribly sorry, I just smashed a bottle. You probably want to send someone to clear it up.”

Little did I know that the very next day I’d be once again dealing with broken glass.  And once again asking for somebody else's help to fix it.  And, most importantly, once again I was not the person responsible for the broken glass. Far from it. Oh no on this special occasion it was the fault of the grey squirrel who dared to eat peanuts from the bird feeder. For had the squirrel not been flaunting his greed in front of the kitchen window whilst Mark did the washing up, Mark wouldn’t have regarded him as cocky. And he wouldn’t have wanted to teach him a lesson. Which means he wouldn’t have reached for his sling shot. And if all of that never happened, plus Mark’s hand didn’t jog / his sight didn’t go / his sense didn’t fail…

…I wouldn’t have a hole in my kitchen window.

I think there are only two things left for us to conclude:
1. Thank goodness my duck figurine wasn’t decapitated
2. How did someone who is that bad a shot manage to stay alive for seven months in a war zone?

2 comments:

  1. Chip sided with Mark - he also thinks he's under-armed, and needs a pellet rifle to suitably address the squirrel situation.

    I'm just excited about the new tooth!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Umm, bit of a muppet if you ask me. Lucky duck!!

    ReplyDelete