Public Transport and Weirdo Alert

It’s an eye-opening experience when you’re forced to step outside your comfort zone and take public transport.

I’ve caught plenty of taxis in the past (usually in the evening when alcohol was involved) and town buses with the kids when they were little as a treat. Yes, it was a treat to them – especially when they caught sight of themselves on the internal tv screen.

But at the moment I am in between cars and have no choice but to exit my usual hurried routine of garage to destination missions and have found myself loitering on public benches as a result.

I’ve experienced the good and the bad while carless. The reason I am carless is because a couple of years ago I got it into my head that a seven-seater would be a good idea. Trouble is, most of them look like vans or people movers and the only one I could find which looked semi-decent was given the thumbs down by the mechanical ‘bible’ which I was advised to consult. I ignored it and purchased said seven-seater and, to cut a long story short, learnt an expensive lesson. So now, with the car in mind which gets the thumbs up from my car ‘bible’, it is a matter of waiting for it to pop up on my watchlist and pounce.

Hence how the children and I found ourselves in Auckland on Monday post car sale, stranded but with a pocketful of cash. I decided to turn it into an adventure and took us up the Sky Tower, amongst other things, before catching the Naked Bus back home. It could have been a disaster, on foot in a big city with our backpacks and finding our way home but, after many hours of careful planning, it went seamlessly. The bus ride was super-fast, broken up by the young French tourist in front turning round to chat about my son’s unusual name after she heard it spoken. It turns out she was newly pregnant after a New Zealand encounter, but had already named her baby the same name as my youngest. She chatted for about an hour before rummaging for a pen for my contact details. Next minute a pen poked through the gap from the seat behind us, courtesy of another young tourist who must have been listening in.

As the kids and I emerged from our taxi at the other end, they remarked how much fun they had had. That is all the thanks a parent needs and the cost and effort were worth it.

The next day I had a couple of meetings in town so walked up the road to catch the public bus. I think the public bus system here is great. It’s just the weirdos you need to watch out for. But I will come back to that later. The good things about being a passenger are the ability to chill-out, multi-task, and observe things you would normally miss while driving. During the trip in, I spotted my son running round the school field and made a mental note to give him a bit of grief about his pace at dinner that night (I did and it turned out it was his fourth lap), and a friend, who I had no idea was into fitness, training.

On the journey home, however, I encountered the weirdo. This was not my first encounter with a weirdo of late. Recently, while my car was in for repairs, I decided to hang out at the nearby Rose Gardens while I waited. It was a lovely sunny day so I parked up by the river with a book. However, half an hour in, the tranquillity was shattered by a freak who spent a good 30 minutes circling and eye-balling me, then finally pulling out his phone and trying to take pictures. This incident lead me straight to the police station, after which I opted to hang out on a central park bench where it felt safer.

With this week’s weirdo experience, out of all the empty seats, he chose the one opposite mine up the end and turned with his back to the window and just stared. It was very unsettling so I distracted myself by replying to some texts and he finally seemed to lose interest about halfway into the ride. But that was when I noticed he was now leaning forward scrutinising the tv screen. I considered pulling the finger but continued to scowl at my phone instead before gladly jumping off at my stop.

Seven Sharp

Every time I walk into the twins’ room this week I am gripped by a fresh wave of despair. And it’s all thanks to Seven Sharp.

I’m usually quietly chuffed when a news item or documentary on the tele manages to capture the kids’ attention but little did I know that last week’s item about a man with a penchant for collecting toys and displaying them in his home museum was igniting the spark of an idea within Master Seven.

I’m sure I’ve gone on before about my little sloths – one in particular. Miss Seven is a magpie and collects everything and anything, then forgets she has it. I’ve tried telling her the rats and mice and cockroaches like to live in mess, ie her side of the room but, although it conjures up a little shudder, it makes little difference.

It gets to the point where it is diabolical chaos and I cannot see any way how they could deal with it. Therefore I procrastinate the arduous task of tidying the twin’s room and make it a once-a-month job, thereby enabling me to poke the vacuum into their room. This month, however, I took it a step further and looked at it through renewed eyes. They had long outgrown the alphabet blocks and multi-coloured paraphernalia that had adorned their room since it was a nursery. I set about minimalizing their room and, when I came up for air, was quite pleased with the outcome and the space it had created. Miss Seven’s dressing table, which had been mine when I was little, now, once again, resembled a little girl’s dresser with all her grooming odds and ends and jewellery neatly displayed.

That was the night Seven Sharp was on. The man’s toy collection was impressive and I found myself pausing and rewinding to take in his range with the kids.

That night I went downstairs to tuck in the sprogs and stopped in my tracks. Miss Seven’s dressing table was covered in cars! Hundreds of them. There wasn’t a clear surface in sight as I took in the Hot Wheels collection lined up like a car sales yard.

“Ta-daaa,” exclaimed Master Seven proudly, while his sister lay in bed looking meek.

“What’s happened?” I asked, still floored.

“I made a car museum.”

“But where are all your sister’s things?” I asked.

“Over there,” he pointed to a corner of the room where they sat in a sorry pile.

“Why did you let that happen?” I asked Miss Seven.

“Because he swapped my dressing table for a car,” she said, proffering a manky-looking Hot Wheel from under the covers.

This did not sound like a fair trade to me – indeed my sweet-natured Miss Seven had been shafted. I can’t bring myself to destroy the ‘museum’ Master Seven so proudly compiled, nor can I set foot in their room, after all my work, and bear to see it, once again, resembling a trash heap.

I know how a spider must feel after it has laboriously weaved the perfect web, only to have some human come along and destroy it in one swipe. The story of a mother’s life.

First Day

It was the first day of school – the night before I had been all prepared: school uniforms laid out, lunches in the fridge. So how did I find myself standing in a yellow high-vis vest, road-side while Miss Seven’s new stationary and school shorts hung sodden from the clothesline?

The kids were just walking up the drive and I was locking up when all hell broke loose.

“Mum, (Miss Seven) has wet her pants,” cried twin bro.

Sure enough, her shorts were soaking wet.

“How did that happen?” I asked, amidst the teasing.

She was just as baffled but, upon further inspection, it turned out her drink bottle had leaked through her bag and out the bottom, rendering her new stationary drenched in the process.

I hauled us back upstairs to change into another pair of school uniform pants but discovered that, during the course of the summer holidays, they had gone awol.

I eventually dug out an old pair of tights with holes in the butt, careful not to bring this to her or her brothers’ attention, strung her other pair and stationary to the line and we started up the drive again a tad more stressed than the previous attempt.

At school we were met at the gate by Master Nine’s classmate informing him they were on road patrol duty together. Oops – I seemed to remember reluctantly putting my name down for that at Master Nine’s insistence.

Checking the kids into their new classes and meeting the teachers would have to wait for another day as off we went to don our vests, only 20-minutes late for the first day of duty. Luckily the kids were clued up as it was a case of learning on the job for me.

I returned home for a nice mochaccino, re-writing the start to the school year in my head and ignoring the sorry state of the already dry but misshapen books bedraggling from the line.

The next week’s road patrol was more of a success (I’d watched the dvd for parents and shown up on time). However, Master Nine wasn’t as switched on.

“Sign’s Ouuut,” sung his companion, swinging out his sign into the stifling afternoon heat.

No movement from Master Nine across the road. 

“Siiigns Ouuut!” he repeated.

Still he didn’t budge.

We shouted at him to hurry up and finally he launched his sign out, allowing people to cross. 

“What was up with you before?” I asked on the way home. “Why didn’t you hear us?”

“I did hear you but my jandal was stuck to this sticky black stuff on the road and I couldn’t move,” he answered.

Ahhh, that explains it!

I relayed the story of The Twits when the boys were glued to the tree branch and climbed out of their pants to escape and suggested next time, albeit with his jandals, he follow suit.