Reality check

I have recently had two severe blows to my ego, which have made me have a reality check.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, I work for a very good company that appears to really care about its staff. I also have an intelligent manager, who makes the correct decisions. The chances of me looking for other employment are very small.

I am lucky to work a four day week at a reasonable salary. Recently, someone advertised on the Austechwriters forum that they were looking for a Technical Writer to do a one-off user manual for a POS application. I had just bought a new car, so I thought it might be a good way of getting some extra funds without having Mother Superior work extra shifts. I emailed the person, explaining that I did have a day a week available to write the manual. He responded by asking for examples of my work. “Fair enough”, I thought, and duly sent him examples. He responded with – nothing. All I have received is silence. There was no email saying that he had found someone else – just nothing. I can only assume that he was not impressed with my work, and does not want to tell me that. I am a bit confused, because my present employer appears to be happy with what I do. Perhaps they just don’t know any better.

I console myself thinking that I would not want to work for someone who is so rude that he cannot respond to me – but there is still the worry that I have fallen short of expectations, and i am not really that good in my job. What if my present employer comes to the same realisation?

The second incident came when I got a call out of the blue from a recruiting agency. A big software company is desperately looking for technical writers, and would i consider coming over? As I have said, I dont have any plans to change jobs, but I was prepared to find out more about it. I accepted an invitation to discuss it over a cup of coffee. I met these two earnest young men in black suits, who took notes on everything I said. For a momemt, I felt like a wise sage dispensing advice to these men. If I cleared my throat, they both made a note about it. When we parted, they said that they were sure the employer would be keen on opening discussions with me. I left thinking that I would soon have a difficult decision to make. Frankly, I felt quite smug about it. Here I was, employed by a good company, and there was another good company apparently desperate to have my services. I had visions of them fighting over me.

Well, I have come down to earth with a huge bump. A few weeks later, I have heard absolutely nothing. I notice, however, that the recruiting agency is still vigorously advertising the position. I can accept it if there were a number of good applicants, and the employer had to make a choice but, by the looks of things, the employer would prefer to continue looking than to have my services. This is a tremendous blow to my self-esteem, and it has left me wondering what is wrong with me. The two earnest young men from the recruiting agency seemed to be impressed, but the employer has rejected me without even checking on me. Surely, my history of employment should mean something. My current employer appears to be satisfied with my services, so why wouldn’t they? My suspicion is that it has to do with my age. I am almost 56, and my current manager is in his late 30s. I have mentioned before that he is very intelligent, so the age gap is not a problem to him. Unfortunately, not all managers are that clever, and they would see employing a person who is much older and more experienced than them as a potential threat. They would probably envision me criticising their every move.

I should be pleased at the outcome. After all, I am happy with my current employer, and I have been saved from having to make a very difficult decision. Also, it appears that the new employer is very stupid, and there is nothing worse than working for an idiot. Unfortunately, there is still the niggling thought that I have been rejected. If I happen to lose my current job, what would be the chances of being employed again? I had better just make sure that I don’t lose it.

My mid-life crisis

The other day a Corvette pulled up in the car-park outside the office where I work, and a man in his late fifties got out. One of my colleagues remarked that it must be a mid-life crisis car. I suppose that many true words are spoken in jest, and that person in the Corvette is going through the same emotional turmoils that I am.

I am soon to turn 56, and I have suddenly realised that things that I have dreamt about achieving are not going to happen. All my life I have had visions of being a professional singer and actor. I now see that I am not going to achieve those goals, and it depresses me.  I am now stuck in a job that I do not enjoy, with no apparent way out. Simply put, I have feel that I am ready to be put out to pasture. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to retire, so I will just have to stay where I am. I am not even able to change to another job, because it is almost impossible to find someone who is prepared to employ someone my age. It appears that I will have to remain in this rut until I am no longer able to work.

Mother Superior gets very cross with me when I get depressed. She can’t understand why I feel that I have not achieved anything. We have a very happy relationship, and have successfully raised three lovely children who, in turn have married good spouses. I have always had reasonably good jobs, and have done things that many other people have not, like travel overseas giving courses on new technology. I even managed to bring my family from South Africa to Australia to start a new life, and we have all settled well.

I suppose when she puts it that way, it is hard to argue – but why do I still feel unfulfilled? Is it possibly that all of us want to be someone special, be it in entertainment, politics or academic achievement. When we get to our fifties we realise that it is not going to happen, and there is no point in even dreaming about it. I realise now that I can forget about being the entertainer that I wanted to be, and just accept that I will be an ordinary person.

Of course, I should be grateful for what I have got. I am happily married, and we live in beautiful house at the coast. I also have a reasonably well paid job with a great company.

I also feel that time is running out.

Oh yes. I did buy a big car. I did help – but not a lot.

Amateur theatre, the orphan

The speaker in the dressing room suddenly comes to life. “Starters on stage” booms the stage-manager’s voice. A number of us stand up. There are a few last checks in the mirror before we head out into the passage-way and down the stairs to the stage. At  the foot of the stairs, the musical director is waiting to give us some last minute advice and assurances. She is very smartly dressed tonight for her important role as conductor.

I walk through the wings onto the stage. I still can’t get over how huge it is. I look up and see all the sets hanging far above me. At the moment the place is busy, with stage-hands moving scenery and making last minute changes. There is a lot of hammering and sawing going on. I know that we can make as much noise as we like because between us and the auditorium there is the main curtain and a steel fire-curtain.

We all take our places, and the stage-hands withdraw. “Quiet please. The fire curtain is going up” yells the stage manager. The stage goes silent, as we hear the hum of the electric motor lifting the massive steel fire curtain in front of the main curtain. As it goes up, we can hear the babble from the audience, and we wonder how many of them are out there, and how responsive they will be. There are also the odd sounds from the orchestra as they tune up their instruments. I shiver of excitement goes through me. I don’t have a very big part, but I am enjoying this immensely.

The audience beging to quieten, and I realise it is because the lights in the auditorium have started to dim. There is a short period of dead silence, and then the audience applauses because the conductor has appeared. We smile and look at each other. “I sounds like a good audience” I whisper to my fellow actors.

The orchestra springs to life as they play the overture. The stage is suddenly plunged into darkness as the music continues. The curtain goes up and we are dazzled by bright lights. We all look for the conductor’s baton and then break into song on cue. The audience applauds loudly as we leave the stage. Those that are due to go on again soon go to the green room at the side, while the rest of us return to our dressing room upstairs, and wait for the stage manager’s call for us to go back to the stage. We chatter excitedly about how good the audience is, and laugh about mistakes we have made.

I feel that I am in Heaven.

It has taken us a lot of hard work and frustrations getting here, and there were times during rehearsals that I felt like giving up – but now it is all worth it.  None of us have been paid a cent to do this, and it has taken an enormous amount of time and effort to get here, but we are all enthusiastically doing it. This is the magic of amateur theatre.

My childhood and adolescent years were spent in Springs, which was a large town. We did not have any professional theatre groups, so amateur theatre was very popular. We had a beautiful, well equipped theatre which almost always had some show on. There were many theatre groups, like the Springs Operatic Society, Teenage Theatre and the Springs Reps. In addition, the local schools and dance groups put on shows there.  The shows were well supported because audiences knew that they would be treated to quality live shows in comfortable surroundings, without having to go all the way to Johannesburg to see a professional show.

After a very long break, I have returned to amateur theatre. I am now living in Perth, Australia, and I still get a real high out of being involved in a performance. Unfortunately, things are very different to what I experienced in my younger days. Instead of a comfortable modern theatre, we have to make use of a community hall with a modular stage and some retro-fited curtains. There is no green room, dressing room or orchestra pit. The audiences have to endure sitting on hard plastic chairs and have obstructed views. The one plus is that, after the shows, the cast can mingle with the audience and receive the accolades they feel thay have deserved.

I belong to a theatre group called JETS, and have had parts in two of their shows, the most recent being a comedy called Busybody. Unfortunately, my South African accent precludes me from getting any major parts, so I have to be satisfied with smaller roles. Not only that, but there is an amazing amount of talent around, and auditions are hotly contested. My fellow Busybody cast members, especially those taking the larger parts, were absolutely fantastic. They were all so good! It is such a shame that they have to put up with such primitive conditions.

While I am all for promoting a healthy lifestyle, I do think sport gets too much support from the public purse – to the detriment of the Performing Arts. I think it is time that my city, Joondalup, provides its ratepayers with a decent Performing Arts Centre, so that the many talented performers who live here can get a chance  to entertain us properly.

The Good Food and Wine Festival

Every year, the Perth Convention Centre has the Good Food and Wine Festival. Muti Man and Gifted One have been going with their friends for some years. After their first visit, Muti Man could not stop extolling the virtues of this festival. It was as if he had discovered the promised land. He loves the event so much that he looks forward to it for months before the time. I suspect that he would rather miss his own child’s baptism rather than miss the Good Food and Wine Festival.

Anyway, after hearing how life changing this event is, I decided to see for myself, and I persuaded the Mother Superior to come with me. Muti Man was overjoyed.

Well, the great day arrived. On Muti Man’s advice, we decided to take the bus to the station rather than go by car. I wasn’t sure that I would be in a fit state to drive after this wonderful day. Muti Man and Gifted One drove to their friend, Getafix’s, house so that they, with others, could prepare themselves adequately for the treasures of the day. They were prepared to spend the night there.

Muppet and Biggles had also decided to experience the wonders of the festival with us, and had gone ahead on an earlier train.

As the train approached Perth, we got an SMS from Muti Man, asking where we were. It turned out that we were all on the same train. The excitement grew as we pulled into the Esplanade Station.

The festival comprised rows and rows of stalls representing wineries and breweries, with a small number of food providers. We picked up our complimentary wine glasses and made our way to the first aisle. For the moment, I felt I was in  the land of plenty. It was still reasonably early, so we could get to each stall and sample their lovely wines.  It was all very genteel – we could rinse out our glasses before each tasting, and the providers were quite generous. I could also try out my sophisticated wine tasting language, where I could discuss the nose, length and notes associated with each wine. The wines were fantastic, but there was no way that I was going to remember them. The idea was that you were meant to order cases of them, but there was so much to choose from, it would be very difficult to decide. The other problem was that there did not appear to be any spitting bowls, so we were obliged to swallow every taste. I did not mind that at all, but I did realise that if I continued as I was, I would be paralytic by the time I got to the end of the first aisle. It truly did appear to be the promised land.

Mother Superior wisely suggested that we have something to eat before we carried on with the wine and beer tastings. “No problem”, I thought. We will go to the stalls offering food tastings, and have our fill with the samples on offer. I soon discovered that the food providers were not nearly as generous as their wine and beer counterparts. Those that offered samples were quite mean, and there were huge crowds of people desperately trying to get items like infinitesimally small meatballs on sticks. For the moment, I thought I was in a third world refugee camp, with all those arms stretched out trying to grab a small morsel of free food. I found myself in a crowd of people hungrily watching a woman cooking tiny sausages in an electric frying pan. Nobody was going to give up their spot for the promised reward. We anxiously watched and waited, all hoping to partake when it was ready. As soon as the sausages were cooked and spiked with tooth-picks, hands reached from the starving masses to grab them. In two seconds, the bounty was gone. The unlucky ones had to wait for the next lot to be cooked some time later.

We realised that we would have to buy food if we were going to eat properly. There were two stalls selling food. The one that offered Brattwurst sausages had a queue that stretched the length of the exhibition hall. The other one offered gourmet meals – at a gourmet price. We opted for the latter, because we could not see us surviving the queue. The meal was tasty, but tiny. I could see why people decided to brave the queue for the Brattwurst sausages.

The exhibition hall was rapidly filling up with people, and the genteel wine tasting was no more. If you wanted to taste something you had to join the throng of people around a stall, and desparately stick your glass out in the hope that the person who was frantically pouring might give you a drop. No one bothered to rinse out their glasses, so you ended up with a smorgasbord of tastes. I felt like a beggar. Muti Man was in his element. He had taken on the primeval hunting urge. He had a gleam in his eyes as he thrust his glass through a crowd and emerged triumphantly with some precious liquid in it.

Our tickets included a celebrity chef presentation, so we joined about another 1,000 people in the auditorium to watch the event. The celebrities were some surly woman who owned a local restaurant, and a jovial Irish man from Brisbane whose claim to fame was that he had appeared on the television show, Ready steady cook. The surly woman grabbed some flour and began to knead into a dough while muttering something into her microphone. The Irishman obviously felt his job was to be a comedian, because he bravely tried to crack some rather old jokes. The woman did not appear to be amused. After kneading her dough she put it away somewhere and pulled out a cooked tart from one of the ovens. Everybody clapped politely. Now, it was the man’s turn. I think he took piece of salmon and fried it. To give him his due, he did try to educate us on  how to cook salmon. The camera man valiantly tried to show it to us by almost sticking the camera into the fish. The chef then shelved his work and also produced a beautifully cooked version. That was the end of the demonstration, and all 1,000 of us shuffled out wondering if we had learned anything.

Once more, we were back into the melee. Muti Man resumed his enthusiastic hunting. By this stage, I was getting really hungry, and we were grateful to find a stall handing out free samples without a huge crowd around it. We soon found out why. The samples were goat yogurt, and it tasted disgusting. The woman at the stall was delighted to have people actually tasting the stuff, so she proceeded to expound its virtues in great detail, while trying to offer more tastes. We all started looking at our watches and beat a hasty retreat.

I then decided to brave the queue for a Brattwurst sausage. It was a long wait, and we devoured our sausages hungrily.

The Mother Superior and I were getting tired of having to fight through the crowds, so we decided to head home. We left Muti Man and his friends dashing off to try some exotic beer. They still had a lot of fight left in them.

The festival could have been quite enjoyable if they had limited the crowds to about half that was there. All up, including train fare, it cost us about $60.00. Next year, I will use the money to buy a few bottles of nice wine and some fish and chips, and enjoy my festival at home – without the crowds. For my celebrity chef presentation, I can always watch Gordon Ramsey, who is a lot more entertaining.

The dreaded brush

Sister Natalie was my teacher in grade one at the Springs convent. Sister Loosina taught grade two next door. Each of these nuns had a  trade-mark punishment. As I have mentioned before, sister Loosina’s was to lock the child in a dark store-room for period. Sister Natalie had the dreaded brush, which was a large wooden clothes brush. She would whack the bottom of the hapless victim with the handle of this brush. This was a terrible punishment, only meted out to those who really misbehaved. Apart from being a bit of a smart-arse, I was a reasonably well behaved child, so I thought I was unlikely to get the brush at any time. How wrong I was…

This sad story began when I learned to read. Our first book was called Janet and John, the first page of which had a picture of a boy, a girl and a dog. On it was written, “Look John look. I see a dog”. The second page read “Look Janet look I see a dog”. As you can see, it was not exactly riveting stuff, which centred around a boy, a girl and a dog looking at each other. Naturally, I was keen to get onto the next book, which I hoped would have a better story-line and a more well-developed plot.

Anyway, I digress. For our first night’s homework, sister Natalie told us to read the first page. Now, Sangoma, my brother, who was in grade 2, had shown me his reading books, so I had an idea of how to read. I went home and read the first page to my mother. I then broke a cardinal rule – I turned the page, hoping that the story would get more interesting. I continued until a reached the last page. My mother was very impressed (as most mothers are), and told me I was a clever little chap.

I went to school the next day in very high spirits. When sister Natalie called me up to show how my reading went, I proudly told her that I had read the whole book, and would like to go onto the next one. Instead of getting the praise and accolades, which I thought I deserved, I was subjected to a nun’s fury. Sister Natalie was livid. She told me that I had no right to go past the first page, and I ought to be severely punished for it. I was absolutely stunned. I thought the world had come to an end. Shamefully, I made my way back to my desk. I could feel the warm. salty tears running down my cheeks.

At the end of the lesson, sister Natalie called me to her desk. I went over somewhat apprehensively. She opened a drawer and took out a pencil, which she gave to me. She told that, while I was still naughty for disobeying her instructions, she realised that I meant well, so the pencil was a reward. I think it must have come from some reject stock, because she told me it was for home use only, and I was not to bring it back to school. I was so overjoyed to get this recognition, that I did not heed that warning – with serious consequences.

I returned to school the next day with my new pencil – all nicely sharpened. Sister Natalie gave us a writing exercise to do, which I tackled enthusiastically. I got as far as the first line, when the pencil point snapped. It had a very soft lead. Undeterred, I soldiered in with the exercise. All of a sudden a large nun-shaped shadow appeared over my desk. “Are you using that pencil I gave you yesterday?” yelled this truly frightening voice. “Didn’t I tell you not to?”.  I was dumbstruck. I could only look at this veiled monster that was screaming at me. This angry red face literally bulged out of the wimple. Then it attacked. I was dragged, with the exercise book, out of the classroom. I was paralysed with fear. To my horror, I realised that I was being taken to sister Loosina’s classroom. Did this mean the dark room? I don’t know how I avoided wetting myself.  Sister Natalie flung open the door and dragged me in. I desperately grabbed at anything I could. I remember pulling the holy water font off the wall and being doused with the contents. I was dragged through this classroom of grade 2 children, including my brother, Sangoma, until i stood before sister Loosina who was glowering at me from her desk. For the moment, I had an irreverent thought. I felt I was Jesus being dragged in front of Pontius Pilate. The nuns’ desks were on a raised platform, so she looked down at me menacingly.

Sister Loosina inspected my exercise book and listened to evidence from sister Natalie. She looked at me and, then my blood turned to ice when she pronounced the sentence. “He deserves the brush” she said. She could not have sentenced me to a worse fate. The brush was reserved for only the worst offenders, and I was going to get it.

By this stage, I was deeply in shock, and unable to walk, so both nuns picked me up and carried me from the classroom to the place of execution – a bedroom in the boarding house. They then told me to lie face down on the bed, which I refused to do. A major struggle ensued, but I was no match for those strong nuns. In a brief moment of lucidness, I realised that I was not going to win, so I tried negotiating. I told them I would lie still if they were only to give me one smack. They both agreed, and I rolled over to receive my fate. Whack, whack , whack, whack went the brush on my bottom. It really hurt a lot.

I sat up and looked at them in shock. They had lied to me. They had hit me more than once and had breached the contract. I totally lost it. My fear changed to anger, and I screamed every obscenity I knew at them. Sister Loosina beat a hasty retreat, leaving poor sister Natalie trying to control this totally feral enraged human being. I screamed at the top of my voice. I questioned sister Natalie’s parents’ marital status, and her general performance as a human being. I condemned all nuns to the fires of hell.

All of a sudden, sister Natalie grabbed me and carried me into the laundry. She unbuttoned my shirt and started to fan me with a towl, but that made me scream even louder. She then filled a bucket with water and dumped it over my head. That shut me up. We both looked at each other. She was as shocked as I was. I could see her pulse pounding in her neck. Then, she gently patted me dry with a towl. I began to sob. She carefully picked me up and carried me to a bed, where I went to sleep.

All I remember of the rest of that day was sitting at the bus stop waiting for my bus home. Sister Manus, the bus monitor, was holding my hand and making soothing noises.

Many years later, after I had finished school, I asked sister Natalie if she remembered the incident. She said there was no way she could forget it because it was the most frightening time of her teaching carreer. She threw the water over me in desperation, because she had no idea what else to do. It was a traumatic experience for both of us.

Thankfully, that was the only time I got the brush during my time at the convent.

Cyclists

In these days of global warming, with us trying to reduce greenhouse gasses, one would think cyclists would be praised for doing their bit. However, this does not appear to be the case.

Driving home from work yesterday, in a rather narrow stretch of road, I battled to get past some clown on a bicycle in an obscenely tight pair of lycra trousers. On the side of the road was a perfectly smooth completely empty cycle path, but this idiot had decided that he had a right to be on the road, never mind the inconvenience to all the motorists. I reflected on what his motive could possibly be. He is not alone in doing this. Every day I encounter cyclists who shun the cycle paths on roundabouts and just brazenly dart into the middle of the road, and then wonder why they narrowly miss being hit by a car. In every case, they are dressed like clowns with tight fitting lycra trousers.

It’s a funny thing, when people start rding bikes, they are generally quite amiable and pleasant. The rot sets in when they buy their lycra pants with the padding in the bum, and then they get quite nasty. Over time their looks change. Their noses grow really long and their faces become thinner. Most become really ugly. I assume this can be due to carbon monoxide poisoning.

There was an episode in South Park, where people who drove hybrid cars got enveloped in a cloud of smugness, to the extent that they enjoyed smelling their own farts. There is a huge amount of truth in this. Cyclists certainly get enveloped in smugness, and actually deride those who have not taken up cycling. Instead of smelling their own farts, they tend to proudly show off their usually ample genitalia through those lycra trousers.  All that rubbing on the saddle unfortunately gives them quite a bit to show off as well.

Muppet

As I have mentioned before, I have three adult children who have all married well. My eldest son, Spiderman is married to Petal, and they have a delightful daughter, Blossom. My second eldest son, Muti Man, is married to Gifted One. Muti Man and Gifted One are staying with Mother Superior and me while their house is being built. My youngest child is a daughter, Muppet, who is married to Biggles. This post is about Muppet.

After having two wonderful boys, we were rather hoping for a girl when Muppet arrived. Needless to say, I was overjoyed. It was not that I didn’t love my boys, but it felt complete to have a girl as well.

Mother Superior was delighted, because she could now dress her child in pretty pink outfits.

Muppet and I became big mates, and did everything together. It does appear true that sons tend to migrate towards their mothers, and daughters to their fathers. I suppose it is to do with preparing them for future relationships with the opposite sex. I often wonder how fathers manage with more than one daughter. Muppet was so much part of my life that I don’t know how I would do with any more girls.

As I have already mentioned, Muppet and I did many things together. While the boys appeared to be happy doing their own things, we went shopping,  walking, riding and swimming together. During four years of Muppet’s childhood, Mother Superior worked every weekend. This made Muppet and me especially close. Weekends would have been very lonely without her.

There was one occasion when Muppet was thirsty, and drank from the wine cask in the fridge. She got so drunk that I took her up to the hospital. I carried her into the hospital with me covered in vomit, and Spider Man and Muti Man in tow. I can laugh about it now, but it was one of the lowest points of my life. I felt that I had failed my children. I remember that evening, after the children had gone to bed, the flood-gates opened, and I cried my heart out. I did manage to compose myself before Mother Superior got home from work. Fortunately, she did not appear too worried about it.

While Muppet was going through her teenage years, we often had long conversations on how she should relate to male admirers. I remember telling her that pubescent boys had one thing on their minds, and that she should not feel too flattered at their advances. She was a very pretty girl and should not be taken in. I think she accepted my advice.

I often wondered how I would cope with some other guy taking Muppet away from me, and was dreading the inevitable. However, when the time came, I instinctively knew it was the right thing to do. She is now married to Biggles, with my full blessing. They have been through a lot together, and appear to have survived it all. I admit that sometimes I do feel pangs of nostalgia when they are around, and I realise that I am no longer the main man in her life – but at the same time, I know that it is right. Biggles is a good man for her.

All I can do now is wait for the little muppets and biggles to come into our lives.

The scourge of the Mcmansions

A recent phenomenon that has arisen is the Mcmansion, which I think is mainly due to people having more money than brains.

In the good old days, you could buy a block of land in an area that you could afford, and then build a comfortable house on it. Typically the house would have a three or four bedrooms and one or two bathrooms. There would be enough space on the block to have a proper back yard for children to play in and ample space to park their cars. Some of these houses were quite attractive, and many used the slope of the block to create interesting split-level features.

Alas, all has changed. Developers now try to get as much out of an area as possible by creating tiny blocks of land and having the parks double up as storm-water drains. The latter have been given the fancy name of ’swales’, because ‘drain’ does not sound as good. Worse still, all the new developments have terraced flat blocks retained by limestone walls. The developers then sell these postage sized blocks as ‘lifestyle’ n low maintenance blocks.

Stupid people buy these ‘lifestyle’ blocks at exorbitant prices, and then proceed to build the most inappropriate dwellings on them. The higher, the bigger the more ostentatious the better. Some people spend huge amounts of money on columns that would do the Acropolis proud. For some strange reason, many now tend to paint their mac-mansions khaki or grey. They also love tin roofs.

The main objective of the mac-mansion is to be as big as possible, and to take up as much space on the block as possible. The result is that what could have been a picturesque beach suburb is turned into what looks like an industrial area. The mac-mansions in the front street completely block out any views for those one street behind. This does not stop the houses behind having huge balconies that provide views into the surrounding houses.

When I drive or walk through some of these estates and look at all the ugly houses, I can’t help reflecting on what a stupid animal the human being is.

The cherry on the top is, the people who build these obscene houses never seem to make allowances for parking. They forget that they typically own two four-wheel drives, a huge stink-boat on a trailer and a separate trailer. Their visitors also invariably own huge four wheel drives. This results in trucks and boats being parked over public verges and foot-paths, making the area look like a car lot.

Why do people do this? I think it is for the same reason that men tend to drive large four wheel drives – they are trying to make for some short-coming in their anatomy. Women drive four-wheel drives so ‘my children will be safer’.  Never mind the other peoples’ children in smaller cars who are now in more danger competing with their trucks.  Of course, it is purely out of selfishness.

All I can hope for is that some day sanity will prevail, and the mac-mansions will become less popular. However, I am not holding my breath.

My accident at school

I have always been a “home dumper”. I will only consider taking a dump away from my home toilet if I am travelling long distance or an emergency arises. I am amazed at how some people can quite regularly dump at work, and then brazenly leave the stink to some other poor staff member.

My sad tale occurred when I was in grade 1. Sister Natalie was my teacher, and sister Loosina was in  the classroom next door.

I could feel that a “steamer” was brewing but I decided to ride it out until I got home from school. Sister Natalie noticed that I was getting somewhat agitated and asked what  the problem was. Not wanting to reveal the awful truth, I told her my knee, which  conveniently had a boil on it, was hurting. She suggested that I sit with my knee sticking out. This, of course, only made things worse – so I got really agitated. This annoyed Sister Natalie, so she told me to sit outside, because I was disturbing the class.

I sat on the bench outside the classroom for a while until I realised ‘it was going to blow’. I made a dash accross the gravelled quadrangle to the toilet block. Stupidly, I still did not want to dump there, so I thought that having a wee might ease the pressure. I stepped up to the urinal and started to unbutton my fly. Unfortunately, the concentration of doing this caused me to relax elswhere, and disaster hit. I felt the back of my trousers filling up with a warm mixture, and I just could not stop it. Then it started to run down my legs. The stink was indescribable.

Throwing caution to the wind, I dashed into a toilet stall – leaving a trail of shit behind me. I pulled my trousers off to reveal an absolutely ghastly sight. With a plop, the remaining contents in my underpants fell onto the floor.

I decided that the best course of action was to clean myself up and return to the classroom. To save money, the school did not have toilet paper, but had squares of newspaper in a box. I grabbed these and furiously tried to clean up the mess. There was shit everywhere! I used up all the pieces of newspaper to no avail. The toilet was completely blocked and I was still a stinking mess. I then did what every child my age would do. I sat on the floor amongst all the shit, and I cried.

As the horror of my situation began to sink in, I started to howl. This attracted Sister Natalie, who came running in to see what was causing the noise. I can only imagine what she must have felt when met with this shit covered snotty little boy sitting on the floor. Her first reaction was  anger when she saw that I had blocked the toilet with newspaper. However, she did soften, and ran to Sister Loosina to get some help. Sister Loosina was not impressed, and started yelling at me that they would have to get a plumber to unblock the toilet. I really cannot blame her for this, because it must have been a dreadful thing to confront.

The two nuns got a bucket of water and stripped me completely to clean me. They wrapped me in a large sheet of newspaper and carried me into the boarding house. Unfortunately, they could not put my sodden clothes back on and they did not have any replacement clothes. Not wanting to leave me naked, they had to find something else for me to wear. This was a girls boarding school, so they found pair of panties and a dress that would fit me, and there I sat in a convent girls uniform. This was the ultimate humiliation.

The nuns then phoned my long-suffering mother and told her that I had had an accident. I imagine the shock would have aged her appreciably.

 I can’t recall how I got home that day, because my mother did not drive. All I know was that, thankfully, she brought some clothes for me, so I did not have to go home in a dress.

Sisters Loosina and Natalie, I salute you!

The convent

I was brought up in Springs, a town just east of Johannesburg in South Africa. It was a really nice place in those days, with its own shopping centre, theatres and restaurants. It also had a Dominican convent, complete with a Mother Superior and a squad of nuns. We got to know and respect these nuns because  I and my five siblings all went to school there.

The Mother Superior was a wonderful woman. She was kind and gentle, with a strong character. She reminded us all of our beloved Pope John 23, both in looks and temperament, and she is very much the reason why I refer to my darling wife as the Mother Superior.

A true story about the real Mother Superior is that she was once travelling in a car with a group of nuns and a black woman. They decided to stop at a road house to have some coffee. This was during the Apartheid era, so the coffee was brought in china cups for the nuns and a single cardboard carton for the black lady, as was the iniquitous practice those days.  Without hesitation, the Mother Superior grabbed the cardboard carton for herself, much to the dismay of the waiter.

The convent was essentially a girls school that also had boarding facilities. All three of my sisters went there from pre-primary right through high school, and they all did reasonably well there. My two brothers and I did our early primary years there before moving onto the sadistic clutches of the so-called Christian Brothers. At one stage my parents had all six children at Catholic schools, and I understand that the nuns were very generous with school fee concessions.

My father was an accountant by profession and, for as long as I can remember, he was the treasurer of the Convant School PTA. We always did things as a family, so I remember being involved in all sorts of school functions, like fetes and sport carnivals.

As a pupil at the convent, I was absolutely terrified of the nuns – and who wouldn’t be?  Nuns were scary creatures in those days – with their habits, wimples and long black veils, they reminded me a bit of ET! All you could see of them was their faces that appeared to bulge out of their wimples. They also had an uncanny knack of seeing what was going on behind them, in spite of their heavy clothing and veils. And then there were those enormous rosary beads that they wore with their habits- you could hear them rattling from metres away. They must have really suffered on hot days. 

After my  time there as a pupil and, as I grew older, I got to know these nuns for the wonderful women they were. They had given up ther lives for the service of mankind, and ended up teaching brats like me. Some of them, particularly those of Irish descent, had a wicked sense of humour. I also witnessed some of them get a little tipsy on wine at the annual Passover meal. I didn’t always agree with their teaching methods, but I still have a healthy respect for them.

As I have already mentioned, some of these lovely nuns were unfortunate enough to be my teachers. Three that spring to mind are Sister Manus, Sister Natalie and Sister Loosina.  Sister Manus was my pre-primary teacher, and Sisters Natalie and Loosina taught me in grade one an two respectively. Sister Natalie also prepared me for First Communinon and Confirmation, and was very special to me. Sister Loosina was a short fiery woman whose favourite form of punishment was to lock a child up in a dark room with no windows.

Interestingly, Sister Natalie is still very active. I discovered a web page with her picture at http://www.knf.co.za/Site/About%20Us.html. When she taught me, I thought she must be about 100 years old, but I see now that she had only been teaching for a few years when she had to experience me in her class. Now wonder that she often appeared uncertain as to how to handle me.

It was rather odd being a boy at a girl’s school. One of the things I had difficulty with was having to sing the School Anthem, “Oh convent girls are we”. When we tried to sing “O convent boys are we”, we were told to sing the song properly. I also thought that the girls in my class were gross, particularly when they wore their gym outfits comprising white tee shirts with black panties. My, how things change as you get older. I still knew some of those girls as a teenager, and they were really hot!!! They certainly were not looking at me in the same way!

 My future blogs will tell of my experiences as a convent pupil, and will include the time when sisters Natalie and Loosina had to clean me up after I shat in my pants.