My mother is a hoarder. Not the obsessive-compulsive kind, where it looks like her house and yard are having a permanent garage sale, but probably somewhere middle on the scale. I, on the other hand, am rather Buddhist-like when it comes to possessions (except books!)
Anyway, last night mum and dad went out to tea, leaving me alone with the kids (I am looking forward to Adam arriving tomorrow!). Over the course of the evening, an intermittent electronic beeping was steadily driving me insane. I thought it was something to do with the house’s alarm system, but when I went hunting for the source, I found it was coming from mum’s work handbag. I pulled out this snazzy sports watch, which alarm was causing all the noise. Try and I did, nothing really worked to get it to turn off. At one point, I got it to stop and I went back to bed (yes, this was happening when I was trying to sleep). Rage was beginning to burn behind my eyes.
As soon as I heard their car pull into the driveway I ran out (in only bra and undies – my dad got rather a fright) with the watch in my hand, surely looking mentally unstable.
“THIS WATCH! It won’t stop beeping!”
“Oh that,” mum says, unfazed. “I think its broken.”
“Well get rid of it!”
“Why, it still works?”
“Fix it then?”
“I don’t know how dear.”
Aaaahhhhhhh!
She sees my face.
“OK, we’ll leave it in the garage overnight then.”
Fine. Fine, for a temporary solution anyway. If it’d been my watch, it’d’ve been backed over by the car several hours ago, compressed into oblivion. But that’s my mum for you….
