That Annoying Beeping Noise

"Beep … beep … beep … beep …” came a sound from somewhere within the vicinity of the dash.

Seatbelt was on, the doors were all closed …

“Beep, beep, beep, beep …!” The sound sped up as I continued driving. A quick scan behind the steering wheel revealed no lights flashing at me …

“Be-be-be-be-be-be-be …!” It was now frantic.

That was it – the car was about to blow up. I pulled over and grabbed my bag and prepared to abandon vehicle, making a dramatic run for it as the car exploded behind me in a ball of flames…

… When the beeping stopped.

Phew. I regained my composure and carried back on my merry way.

“Beep … beep … beep … beep …”

What the heck?!

I looked at the DVD/reverse camera screen – it was displaying Japanese characters, probably indicating the GPS was on. Ah, that was it!

“Beep, beep, beep, beep!”

Like I know how to work a GPS, let alone one in Japanese which is probably set for some far-flung route on the other side of the world. No wonder it was now going crazy – I was probably about to drive off a cliff in Japan. 

“Be-be-be-be-be-be-be …!”

I began stabbing my finger wildly at the screen, hoping to shut it down, but to no avail.

This time I wasn’t falling for it’s prank. I continued on driving, determinedly trying to ignore the loud beeping filling the car.

There was no explosion and eventually it beeped itself out. Obviously it was resigned to the fact I was destined to drive over a Japanese cliff, if I hadn’t already. 

No, I would Google it when I got home, or get it checked out at the mechanics. There’d be a simple explanation, like that time I thought there was a major mechanical fault but, no, it was just a button the kids had pushed when they’d been playing in the car.

But do you think I ever got round to doing so? After months of my Japanese import tormenting me by only ever beeping when I was alone, I was finally enlightened after swapping cars for the day with a mate.

“Oh, and did it do that funny beeping thing at you?” I asked when we swapped back.

“Yeah it’s just telling you the person in the passenger seat hasn’t got their seat belt on,” he casually replied.

“But I never had anyone in the passenger seat.”

“You would’ve had your bag sitting there. It’s a seat weight sensor.” 

Shame!

Riight.

Note to self: Buckle oversize handbag to passenger seat.

Explicit Content and Curious Minds

Shortland Street clearly has a racy, new writer. Over the past few weeks the PGR show has been raunchy, hilarious and, well, inappropriate for its younger audience.

So engrossed are we in our weekly, usually family-friendly, soap fix, that I hadn’t stopped to check whether the content was suitable for under ten’s. While the ambulance was rocking from side-to-side from the shenanigans within, much to the Shortland Street CEO, escorting important visitors around the premises’ mortification, I was slapping my knee in hilarity, oblivious to what must have been going through the heads of my three.

It wasn’t until this week when Miss Seven questioned a storyline about the customised renamed Fitbit – ‘Trick-Track” that I realised what they were drinking in. “Why is that so funny mummy?” she asked, which stopped me mid knee-slap.

Oh gee, how could I explain that? You see, there’s a bit of a fitness challenge going on at Shortland Street at the moment whereby some of the characters wear these ‘Trick-Tracks’ and sync them to their phones to follow their and their peers’ daily activity.

In a bizarre storyline, a particularly meddling mother, used the tracker to check on her daughter’s state of nocturnal marital satisfaction. It wasn’t looking good, so the meddling mother went about setting up an intimate date for them while babysitting the kids. Once the daughter twigged what her mother was up to, her and hubby rigged it to look like they had been super-active all night. That alone wasn’t the cause of the knee-slapping – other scenes followed, which I will spare you.

But back to Miss Seven’s question: given the fact that it was an hour-long episode and I’m brain-dead come 8 o’clock, I was stumped. I looked over at Master Ten, who had a pink-cheeked smirk on his face and realised he must’ve had an inkling. Master Seven was oblivious and engrossed in his ipad but Miss Seven just wouldn’t let up. Eventually she was given some feeble explanation about going to the gym at night, which I’m not sure she bought, given there’s nothing funny about that so it was a bit of a wake-up call as to my own parenting complacency.

I’m lucky they didn’t question the rocking ambulance but, while myself and, according to social media, others are clearly enjoying this writer’s humour, I’m not keen to explain what they have next up their sleeve so think I’ll start recording Shortland Street for later and go back to reading the more innocent Famous Five and Pippi Longstocking stories during prime time.
                                                                                                                                                     

Rugby Mess

We were all checking our phones last Saturday morning. The sporting parents were hoping like anything that games would be cancelled. It was the start of the holidays after a grueling long term, it had been raining hard all week and it was ice-cold.

But still the text didn’t come in.

The soccer had been cancelled the previous day, there was just one more to go … but eventually as the morning cleared, I had to face facts that the rugby was still on and so, reluctantly, piled the tribe in the car.

In at Kensington Park it was like a mud bath.

“Gosh, it really should have been cancelled today,” muttered parents on the side line, watching as once pristine shirts, developed a lovely shade of brown.

On the field, the kids were having a ball. By the time our 11am game came around, the well-trampled centre field was a muddy pit in which, after scoring a try, it became standard practice for the teams to run back to their positions conducting a ‘Steve Parr-style’ skid along the way, often ending on their backsides.

Master Seven, whose soccer had been cancelled, took to kicking his football on the side line with anyone he could convert to his chosen sport. It turns out many are adept at the game, with one random lady completely ruining her once white shoes.

But it was Even-Stevens: she kicked the ball, Master Seven went charging down a slight dip in the grass to chase it … and his feet completely skidded out from under him.

He emerged a thick, wet chocolate-hued mess – on the rear at least.

“Ahh, guys, how do you think you’re getting home?” I questioned after the game, thinking of my recently-cleaned car, skint of any plastic bags or towels.

“I hope you boys realise you are being stripped to your undies and sitting on newspaper all the way home,” I heard one mother call to her boys as they continued to skid around in the mess.

Ah, good idea, I thought and remembered the newspaper I had retrieved from the letter box on the way out.

Back at the car, I opened the doors to form a ‘dressing room’ and made the protesting boys strip while I stood and quickly skimmed the back section of the newspaper. Then I lined the car with it and placed the soiled gear on top, and lined the car seats with the rest.

And with that, we drove back for hot showers, albeit with two grumpy boys not talking to their fun police mamma who made them travel home in the nuddy.