The Dyson was blocked. Seemed simple enough to fix. Was it?
The wife had to work that afternoon. So I had to look after a hyperactive three-year-old and a kitten. Seemed simple enough. I thought I’d clean the house while I was at. The place was a tip.
As Baby settled down to watch his TV, hugging the kitten, I glanced at the clock. It was only 5 pm, but it had been a long day and the sun was definitely over the yard-arm. Hunting up the condiments, I poured myself a G&T.
After cleaning the kitchen counters, I decided to tackle the floor – which was all the dirtier for having received the bulk of what had previously been upon the counters.
I swept away happily, and I got into the Nooks and Crannies.
It was at this point that the doorbell rang.
Hello, said my friendly neighbour, did you know that your child is walking upon the top of your fence? With a two metre drop down to the street?
Baby was most apologetic, and promised not to do this again. He was, he explained, “after the cat”.
I went back to the hoovering. After five minutes, I thought I’d better enquire about the silence elsewhere in the house.
Baby was, he explained, “watering the cat”.
The cat was taking being watered by a leaky watering can most philosophically. However, I thought it best to shoo Baby away. He settled down to watch Peppa Pig and I got back to my cleaning.
In fact, I was so carried away that I started making tea. A vegetarian curry pie.
A watched kettle never boils, and a watched pie never cooks. I was staring in there for some time and all I saw was raw pastry.
Then I heard a cry of “Papi! The Cat popped my balloon!”.
Further investigation proved that Baby had been hitting The Cat upon the head with the balloon afore the aforementioned popping. Assignation of criminal intent is never easy.
When I got back to the kitchen, the damned pie had burnt.
After treating my burnt fingers, I had another G&T. Then I had a look at Deezer. No fewer than 43 million songs, and it personalises the radio to my tastes. All it plays are songs that I’ve told it to, or songs that I’ve heard before and don’t like. Could it be that I’ve heard every popular song between 1960-2017 and discarded most of them?
Whilst so occupied, I glanced out of the window. Baby was, once again, upon the wall, doing a balancing act that would have guided him across Niagra falls. After the dratted Cat, of course.
At that point, the missus returned home and enquired why I hadn’t a) fixed the Dyson and b) finished the pie.
I gave up and took everyone out for dinner.
Editorial note: This is an old article which was never published – just came across it and polished it up for the blog.
My son is doing a project for his 8th grade Spanish class and I am helping by looking up articles on Franco. Ran across your site and read this. This was a fun read, I think it would make a cute children’s book.