The Riot Diaries
I took Brent’s Mother into the city.
We went to my favourite book shop; we were looking for something for Brent’s birthday.
“I just need to find a bathroom”, said Brent’s
Mother, the minute we got into the shop. I pointed her in the
general direction.
5 minutes later, an alarm went off and Store
Security raced through the door previously used by Brent’s
Mother.
I waited another 5 minutes, wondering what all the excitement
was about.
Suddenly the door opened and Brent’s Mother emerged, looking a little sheepish, escorted by a couple of burly store security guys.”
“Oh dear,” she said, “I think I just set off the fire alarm”. I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Oh well,” she continued, “I may have gone out the wrong door…it did say EXIT and I just assumed…” The security team handed her over and I went out to take a look at the offending door.
Sure enough, over one of the doors was a large EXIT sign but directly under that sign was another equally large sign which said - NOT TO BE USED EXCEPT IN EMERGENCY…WILL SET FIRE ALARM OFF…”
Clearly this door was not to be used unless a Meteorite struck the store.
“And your emergency was?” I asked Brent’s Mother, “Well, to get back to you…for lunch”, she said matter-of-factly.
April 17th
Brent’s Mother accompanied me into ‘Bin Inn’.
It’s one of those bulk food stores that has large containers
of unidentifiable substances among other things.
After yesterday’s adventure, I probably should have tied
her up outside but she seemed so keen to explore; I just didn’t
have the heart to.
I found her excitedly about to fill her bag
with budgie seed.
“What the ……?” I said.
“Bread making”, she said, “I’ve found this wonderful grain for bread making – you can’t get this at home”.
April 18th
I left Brent’s mother at home, while I went for ride on The Phantom.
We met up with some other riders and stood around chatting.
The
Phantom reached out to one of the other horses, “Look”,
he said, shuffling around a bit, “I’ve got boots”.
The other horse stared at them and sniffed them, “What the hey?” he said.
“BOOTS!” yelled The Phantom delightedly, “I
have boots!”
“Are you a tap dancer?”
“Do I look like a TAP DANCER?” roared
the Phantom.
“Well, you have, THE BOOTS”.
We continued on our way home, the Phantom muttering and stomping disconsolately along the road when suddenly a bird flew out and startled him. He bounced up in the air and clattered around in a perfect rendition of a Rag Time Tap routine.
“Brilliant!” I said, “You are a natural born Tap Dancer”.
“Listen”, hissed the Phantom, “Any mention of this to Persil and I’ll tap dance into your living room, sit on the couch next to your Mother-in-Law and put my boots up on your table”, then he added, “And you know she won’t stop me”.
April 19th
Brent’s
Mother has an Aunt she wanted to visit.
We all went.
The Aunt is 86 years old and so like Brent’s mother
in personality, it’s spooky.
“Hello Dears,” she said, meeting us at the door
like an excited puppy.
“Oh!” she said, over a cup of tea, “It’s
just so wonderful to have visitors”, and she issued us
with a little china plate to put slices of fruit cake on and
she didn’t stop talking for about 4 hours.
I learned who is related to who down the entire family tree, from Great Great Great(to the power of 10) Uncle (on her Father's side) Bernard through to little Davis aged 3. (and very advanced for his age)
I learned about an operation she was due to have on her eyes – only she didn’t because the surgeon wanted to do it a few hours earlier and she took that as a bad omen and cancelled all together. She’s technically “Blind” she told us gleefully, “but I can still see smiles”.
We stood up to go and it took another hour to make it the
couple of meters to the door.
(There were a few more relatives,
who arrived back in 1886, on The Good Ship Boredom that we
apparently needed to know about).
* Names may have been changed due to memory failure
April 20th
Brent’s Mother’s influence has extended to The House God.
She’s a strict vegetarian with a code of ethics and logic that even I; an avid animal lover, find hard to understand.
Zeuss came in late this morning and asked if he might have
a little snack.
I placed some minced meat in his bowl and was
gobsmacked when he pushed it away with his paw.
“I can’t eat that”, he said.
“You what?”
“I believe you prepared this on a board previously used
for cutting VEGETABLES”, he said, shuddering as he mentioned
the word ‘vegetables’.
“Well, yes I’m sure I cut some vegetables on that
at some stage”.
“Well, there you go then”,
he said smugly.
“Zeuss”, I said, “this has
never worried you before, what the hell are you on about now?”
“I can’t eat something that has been tainted by
VEGETABLE FEAR”, he said emphasizing ‘vegetable
fear’ dramatically.
“You what?”
“Personally, I don’t know how you can do it, uprooting
those poor little vegetables from the only home they’ve
ever known…”
“Zeuss, this is absolutely ridiculous,
what on earth ARE you going to eat?”
“Oh don’t worry about me,” he said, “I’ll
get something myself”.
With that, he trotted outside to return about a minute later with a dead rabbit he had obviously stashed somewhere for just such an occasion.
I dumped them both outside, “That rabbit,” I said, “is probably stuffed with carrots”.
April
21st
Brent’s mother has gone home now and Zeuss has a new word he is keen to use.
Grommart sat on the couch with one eye open staring into space with her tongue poking out slightly.
“Special needs”, said Zeuss.
Flossom swatted him with a well aimed paw as he walked passed her, “Especially Grumpy” said Zeuss.
Sticky yawned and stretched before wandering into the bedroom to see if anything was happening, Zeuss watched him go, “Especially bored” he said.
“And you Zeuss?” I asked; I was dying to know… “SPECIAL AGENT” he roared, before ducking outside to investigate stuff.
April 22nd
We have a major fly problem.
They come in herds and swirl about the place driving us all nuts.
Brent’s brother had an electronic zapper which impressed
the socks off Brent (it’s a ‘man’s gadget’).
Brent
spent quite some time glued to the front of Ken’s
electronic fly zapper, waiting to witness the execution of
a fly.
When, eventually, a fly stupid enough to fly into such
an obvious killing machine, flew into it, there was a loud
zap complete with impressive lightening effects and a puff
of smoke.
Brent was entranced.
“We have to get one of those”,
he said.
He purchased one which you wield by hand. It’s shaped like a tennis racket so he could race around the lounge zapping flies and practicing his tennis at the same time. It lasted about two days before he smashed it against what must have been an enormous fly and broke the handle.
I decided to get the next ‘fly killing machine’; it’s a Pyrethrum ‘puffer’. An unobtrusive little device which sits up high and emits the odd puff of (harmless to us, and more importantly, the cats) Pyrethrum and it’s working a treat.
Now the vacuum cleaner is surviving happily on a diet of dead flies, and I don’t have to put up with Brent practicing a combination of tennis and deadly martial arts around the lounge