Diary of a Mrs Dad
It’s a beautiful spring day, the flowers in the backyard are blooming, and I saw my first butterfly. I wafted it with my cigarette smoke.
***
Parents are the font of all knowledge to their kids, but you’ve got to be on your toes.
‘What car did Jesus drive?’ was a stumper from Dude, aged ten.
‘A Kombi,’ I replied, ‘to drive him and his twelve hippy mates around.’
***
School pick-up is the most dangerous time of day. The lollipop lady, a wizened, authoritative old biddy in a white reflective coat, told me that she’s scared of mothers in four-wheel drives, who never stop at the crossing. ‘It’s like they drive a truck twice a day and think that’s a good time to text. That’s why they gave me this ...’ Then she showed me her stop sign, which was attached to a three-and-a-half metre pole. ‘I stick this in front of them and I never have to leave the path.’
***
Dude asked about sign language. ‘You know how the two fingers up at people means “F” off?’ he ventured.
‘Yeees ... ’ I replied with trepidation.
‘And when your fingers are around the other way, it’s a peace sign ...’
‘That’s true.’
‘Doesn’t that mean that when you’re giving the peace sign, you’re telling yourself to “F” off?’
***
Today I minded a dog that belongs to some friends. They’ve had a string of bad luck with pets, although the bad luck was really the pets’, because they all died. They had a cat that was run over, and a one-eyed rabbit that was mauled by a neighbour’s cat and died when he escaped on one of those forty-three-degree days last summer. I thought it was very brave of them to let their child call their dog ‘Snuffkins’. Tempting fate, if you ask me.
Dudina (seven years old) had a friend over for a play date at the same time that we were minding Snuffkins. All the kids disappear into their rooms straight after school and I noticed that Snuffkins was missing too. I found him propped up on some pillows in my daughter’s bed, wearing a tutu and chewing on a dummy as the girls made cutie-purring noises at him. His little Emo eyes, peering through a mottled fringe, seemed to be saying, ‘Kill me now.’ I’ll leave that job to your owners, Snuffy.
I still miss my dog Belly, a blue heeler–Labrador cross that we had the pleasure of living with for fifteen years. I still catch myself going to open the back door to say hello, seven months after we had her put down. Belly was the kindest animal I have ever known, who copped eye gouges from babies and only ever licked them back.
It was the Thursday before Easter that we had to take her on her last road trip to the vet. The Breadwinner thought we should bury her on a friend’s farm to help the kids deal with death, and so also thought it would be a good idea if Dude and I made a cross for her grave, before the arthritic old thing bought the farm ... literally. As I made the cross, a manual arts feat of which I am barely capable, Belly wagged her tail at me, looking to fetch the stick, which was the crossbeam of the cross; Easter Thursday, and I knew exactly how the Centurions felt. Dude made me feel better when he wrote on the cross, ‘Belly. 1994 to 2009. 105 years old.’
***
Dude told me he faked going to the toilet to have some ‘alone time’ with his toothbrush.
***
Cooking smells don’t leave a small house quickly. To appease the Breadwinner’s sensitive nose (she can pick from the other end of the house which pocket my pot is in), I lit some incense. ‘Dad,’ Dude’s voice piped up from the other room, ‘that incense smells like dead perfume.’
***
An old friend visited me today. He was either working undercover for social services or thought he was being crafty when he asked Dude, ‘Does your dad smack you?’
‘No, never,’ was the reply. ‘He just plays Xbox with me.’
***
After washing his hands, Dude dried them over the vacuum-cleaner air vent.
***
Life and death issues are dealt with every day.
‘Dad, how come you buy us a treat and not you?’ asked Dude. ‘Is it because you’re slowly dying?’
‘Just stick me in a home when I’m old,’ I told him.
‘Yeah’ said Dude, ‘it’ll be expensive, but worth it.’
***
When the Breadwinner wants a holiday but can’t afford it or doesn’t have the time, she rearranges the furniture so that she feels like she’s living in a different house. This is fine in theory, but when I turn off the lights and head to bed, I inevitably crash into a piece of furniture that wasn’t there the night before. I realise that I live with a poltergeist.
***
I finally figured out how to make vacuuming fun. Don’t do it.
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which ‘four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts’. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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