Go left! No, right! This offramp! You should have turned off back there. OMG! By the time we arrived at our destination I was utterly exhausted. I have no idea how my husband’s family ever gets anywhere. Backseat drivers! Open the window. Close the window. After everyone had disembarked I turned to my spouse and asked about his state of general sanity. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, “I tuned them out just after we left home. The trick is to do the opposite of whatever direction they give.”
The destination was the Rand Easter Show. I am not sure it is really is much smaller and dinkier then I remember, but I seem to recall having to take the monorail to get from end to the other. Not anymore, its like Santarama or miniland.
The only thing worth seeing was the SANDF display. I rode on a tank, I shot a rifle, I got a troepie to teach my boys how to fold their clothes and I got to sit in the cockpit of a Rooivalk helicopter. It was very cool. Small boy recently turned 9 would like to join the Special Forces. Small boy aged 6 is torn between the medics and the airforce and Small girl aged 5 wants to join whatever will allow her to shoot the pink and purple rounds. She was so impressed by the colour coordination that she went up to a soldier and complimented him on having different colours for boys and girls. I think he was totally nonplussed.
The rest of the show was like trip into Carnivale. The funfair, which I swear used to have a massive rollercoaster in my youth, was creepy and had a teeny tiny little coaster with no rollers. However, the offspring loved every moment of it. So it was worth it. Oh, and I finally got to see the Calabash Stadium. From the outside. My sons got to play soccer with David Beckham there and they don’t even know or care who he is! The unfairness of it all…
The upshot of the Rand Show trip was that Small boy about to turn 9 chose his birthday present and so on the day of his birth we trekked off en famille to Linux Yamaha in Randburg. The look of sheer joy on his face just about managed to quell the violent nausea at the price and a future of trips to the ER ahead of me. He is now the proud owner of a Yamaha 110 scrambler. The two salesmen were bursting with joy and male camaraderie at the prospect of initiating a new man into the hall of manliness. It took forever, but we left with the bike, a helmet that makes Small boy look like a space invader and a series of funky and largely inappropriate decals to put on my kombi (chosen to shock and dismay the PTA).
“Don’t worry,” drawled the sales oke, “He’ll be riding it first gear for about a year.” Not a bloody chance. We picked up his friend and hit the park, fifteen minutes later he was pushing 60 km/hr and working the gears like he was born to it. An hour later and he was standing up ramping the bumps. I have created a monster MX man. Of course I got a go. It was totally awesome! I can’t believe I still know how to ride a bike and the goofy grin that plastered on my face wouldn’t move for hours afterwards. Now I just need a Yamaha 125 for me and I’ll be good to go.
Of course the past week has not been all fun and games. Halfway through the Royal Wedding, which I have been looking forward to like a soap opera junkie, I had to go to hospital. Now if you are a man you may want to stop here, but then again if you haven’t come to terms with how the female body works yet, you have no business going near one. I missed the wedding but gained an ovarian cyst that hurt like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and ruined my day. What the hell? Is my stomach destined to look like a patchwork quilt? I’ll be the Bride of Frankenstein (Note to spouse: this does not reflect on you). I have to return for another invasive exam on Friday as the powers that be in white coats think about what to do about it.
Once they had medicated the pain away, which took a while given that they couldn’t find a vein and punched holes all over my arm, I just began to feel rather stupid and wanted to go home. But no! Once they’ve got you they won’t let you go. So, there I was in my fluffy slippers and my jammies feeling like a right tart.
My spouse went off to the cafeteria and came back with a Bike SA magazine. He then proceeded to laugh uproariously at the Biker Chicks, an admittedly very weird ad for the some Christian Biker Gang of two bearded men with tears running down their faces and another odd personals ad for the return of a missing biker’s body. And guess who was in the cubicle next door? A tattooed biker with an Eagle on his back and his equally tattooed chick. Did they hear his commentary? Oh yeah. I think had we not been in the ER she would have flattened me. But who in their right mind is going to take on a woman in fluffy slippers? My spouse was unrepentant. I think he may have forgotten the days when I was the bitch on the back.
As for the Royal Wedding, my dad is going to send me a DVD and a mug, and I made up for it by watching Serial Killer Sunday on the CI channel.
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