Wednesday 21 July 2010

Corn oil

My wife and I spent last weekend at an educational establishment.

It was my daughter's house actually, and for the communal lunch on the Sunday when my son brought his brood too, we had a team of 7 grandchildren, aged from 2 to 10, to entertain.

I think the children learnt a lot.

1. If you want a slightly more expensive bauble from the toy-shop than your spending-money allows, granny's your best bet.

2. When Mummy is mad at Daddy, don't let her brush your hair.

3. If your sister hits you , don't hit her back, they always catch the second one.

4. No matter how hard you run, you'll never catch a pigeon.

5. You can hide unwanted broccoli in a glass of milk.

6. Never break your little brother's favourite toy when he's holding a cricket bat.

What did I learn?

1. Don't give chocolate to a 3 year old when you're wearing smart cream trousers (I think I knew that but my memory is not what it was).

2. Weetabix sticks to the wall if you let it dry (see above re memory).

3. Always consider your wife's hand-writing.

This last one may need some explanation. You see, when there's a lot happening on the lunch-preparing and child-minding front, its sometimes helps if the most expendable and useless member of the family pops down to the supermarket to purchase those provisions which Sainsburys failed to deliver. That elderly man will obviously require a list of what is required and since he is not familiar with the lay-out of the supermarket he will naturally find the prettiest shelf-stacker and, trying to look hunky and helpless at the same time (that's quite difficult), ask if she will help him to find things. Well that was no problem, although I'm afraid the 'hunky' turned into 'pathetic' but we were doing well until we came to the last item, Corn Oil. The girl gave me a peculiar look and asked how much I thought I'd need.
"Oh, a fairly big one I should think", indicating eleven or twelve inches with my two hands. "Could I just borrow the list back, to check what she said?".

And then I noticed that my wife's capital C with its big curly loop, looks just like a capital P.

1 comment:

  1. At the last visit, Porn Oil wasn't something that the Co-op near me stocked, but perhaps the supermarket where your daughter lives is a bit more sanguine about selling sexual lubricants than the presbyterian lot where I live.

    You'll have been the talk of the canteen!

    Also - never forget that pale clothes attract dark stains and vice versa. I've found the solution is to just dress the little blighters in camouflage :-)

    Ali x

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