John Wayne and the Sidewalk Showdown

John Wayne ain’t got nothing on me. I had to go to gynae (shudder here with horror) yesterday. Of course I didn’t phone before I go there and some woman chose my appointment to go into labour. Honestly, how selfish is that! So the horror was postponed a few hours much to my relief. The good news is I don’t have cancer and am revoltingly fertile. I don’t whether to be proud of my body’s biological imperative to breed or mildly ashamed. Regardless I am glad my spouse agreed to be snipped. Not that it was without its challenges.

Spouse: “But, you can’t serious, it’s so invasive!”
Me: “You want invasive!” voice now tinged with hysteria, “You want invasive? Try natural childbirth three times and I’ll give you @#$%* invasive!”

The bad news is that my uber-fertile ovaries have mass produced ova and refuse to suck them back again so I have a bleeding cyst on one – the source of the acute pain that led me to the Sunninghill ER in my pantoffels during the Royal Wedding. And now for the really bad news, I have to face the doc again in 6 weeks! Horror.

Admittedly, Dr Mseleku at the Parklane is a dream of a gynae. She is beautiful, well spoken and… how can I put this without sounding sexist… um, I can’t… she a woman. My previous one was the very same who delivered me unto this world almost 35 years ago. He has an eye that doesn’t work, so it stares unblinking and blindly at you while he performs mediaeval torture with a pair of braai tongs down below. Also I think he is the far side of 80. Malepule didn’t try to book me a Caesar to fit in her golf game when I was pregnant and gave me an enormous amount of support in my desire to have home births. Basically she tries to make the whole procedure as comfortable as possible, which let’s face it isn’t.

Today’s challenge: Buy soccer boots, shin pads, school socks and assorted soccer gear and deliver to Small boy aged 9 before match. It was a mad whirlwind rush and as usual me in a sports shop fills me with dread. I know people can see the neon sign on my head saying, “Sportphobe!” I feel more out of place in the Adidas store than in Builders Warehouse. That’s saying something. And yes, I went to Adidas because it is in the Mall and close to work. The shoes are divine – called Predators! Awesome, they should give my chap some confidence.

Next stop was the school swap shop run by scary PTA mothers. Of course I couldn’t escape with just the socks. Oh no, that would be too easy! I had to agree to scarves too and narrowly avoided having to purchase braai tongs with a built in torch and a toolkit. It was worse than going for a facial. By the time I rushed through hallowed halls of learning in search of my son I was retail wreck. Do you know they lock the little buggers up in there? Do they think they’ll riot or try to escape? I have no idea, but it makes finding your son in that warren an absolute nightmare. Still Small boy will be kitted out in time for his match against KES. I just hope mhe makes it home alive, I’ve heard things about KES boys.

It occurred to us as parental providers of exorbitant school fees this morning that we could hire a fulltime teacher to educate our children at home to the UK syllabus with individual attention for less than we pay now. Private schooling here in sunny South Africa, is not a luxury it is an absolute necessity. The fact that no government minister would send their child to a public school says it all. They educate to the lowest common denominator. So as parent you just have to find a way to afford education even to the point of funding Olympic size water polo pools.

I have a theory about all this. I think our new government has learnt from the old Apartheid Boys. Education gets people thinking. Thinking leads to questions. And no-one wants to answer those. So while the elite get fatter and richer, the poor get leaner and poorer with no way out. Let’s face it they want everyone to believe the blither and blather they spout as Gospel truth. Our President tells them that voting for him will get them into heaven! What has he got an All Access Pass to the Great Almighty? Then again they planed acres of porcelain loos across the fields so maybe he has a dedicated line to the Pearly Gates.

I almost forgot my morning’s most exciting episode, which given the state of my life is not saying much. Sitting in the morning traffic at the corner of Glenhove and Oxford Road I was just puffing away on my smoke, chatting to the newspaper seller and bopping a bit to Kid Rock when all of sudden… bah, bah BAH!

Two men one with a half brick and one with a bit of pipe launched into the traffic. As this took place directly in front of my car I had a ring side view of the action. Brick Man was livid with rage and determined to beat the hell of Pipe Man. Pipe Man was perfectly happy to oblige.

Pipe Man’s Sidekick tried to defuse the situation and managed to get Pipe Man to turn back to the sidewalk. Brick Man cracked and let fly the half brick. I followed the trajectory with slow motion tracking as it narrowly missed my windshield and paintjob. It nailed Pipe Man right on the noggin. Once he had regained his footing, Pipe Man was ready to unleash the monster within.

For a moment, a split second, I debated getting out the car and telling everyone to chill out and have a smoke. Then I realised it was stupid white girl thing to do. By the time I got round the corner the little melee had attracted quite a crowd, taxi drivers and their passengers, the entire construction crew of the Gautrain station and other odd passers by. No-one seemed inclined to interfere much, so I let them get on with it and went to work.

After that work seemed positively normal.

Egbok. Even when it doesn't seem like it.

Vrrrrrrrr - that is the sound of me rewinding this day and starting it over or just erasing it completely. Someone get me that universal remote thing from the movie I never saw. Oooh – or Hermione Granger’s egg timer. Yeah, one of those. Barring that just knock me on the head and give me a day’s worth of retrograde amnesia a la Days of our Lives.

Okay, so it’s just been one of those days. I went back to hospital this morning for a follow-up from my emergency room visit last week. Apparently the stomach pain was a side effect from the back operation and all my insides getting messed around. The cyst they found has doubled in size since last week and is now haemorrhaging hence the continual pain. Now I have to face my worst doctor ever… the gynae. Just the word makes me shiver.

I limped dejectedly back to the car to find it afloat in a sea of oil. Perhaps that is a slight exaggeration but it seemed sweet Bella has sympathetic symptoms and is haemorrhaging oil. At least I think that disgusting brown ooze is oil. I was told to stay put and await rescue. Thankful for Bella’s roomy interior I curled up for a nap, which was promptly interrupted by my colleague having a badly timed meltdown. Understandable? Absolutely. Could I do anything about it? No.

By now of course I have got to the office sorted out his hysteria and am contemplating a cup of hot sweet tea before calling the dreaded gynae. It’s so long since I saw her I have no idea if she still exists and I am not going back to the one who delivered me 34 odd years ago and has a gammy eye that stares eerily at you.

That however is not the end of this list of woes. My beloved eldest son has been diagnosed with dyslexia. I wish I could leave my job and fetch him from school and help him everyday, but I have to pay off crippling medical bills. I don’t know want to do. Should I take him out of his high-pressured academic school and send him to a school designed to help and empower him? Is his schopl the right choice for him or me? Am I forcing him to live up to his parents’ legacy instead of treating him as a special and unique individual who might grow so much stronger in another environment? And where is another environment? If I do send him to another school would he live through life with the stigma of a remedial school? Would it matter if it made him stronger, happier and more equipped to handle the world? And whose stigma is it anyway? And do they even matter? By the time he graduates no-one will give a damn and it’s not like every matriculant from a private school goes on to guaranteed success – some end up second hand car salesmen. My heart just bleeds for him and I want to make it easier for him. Any ideas?

The weather mirrors my narcissistic selfish state of mind. I want to wallow like a hippo in a warm bath of mud. Now that I’ve vented into the abyss of cyberspace I feel slightly better although I’d rather go home, have a hot bath and sleep then face the rest of this day. I lie. I want to rush over to school pick my son; hold him close and take him to school that will appreciate him.

I think I've had my quote of bad things today. can you send over some good ones to balance it out? Like a lottery win of a million dollars?