Animal or vegetable?

Happy New Year! It’s 2009!

I wonder how many months it will take me to remember to write the correct year on my cheques this time. I note that with advancing age it takes longer and longer to get this right. I used to have the correct year memorised by the second week of January or so, but now it can be well into June before I have become accustomed to the turnover.  Given the economic turndown and the assumption that I will be writing even fewer cheques this year which is, let’s face it, the only time I really write down the date myself  in longhand without the assistance of a computer, it could actually be next Christmas before it really sinks in.

Last night we went to a party with the children. It started at 5pm in deference to bedtime (whose? I wanted to ask) and I agreed to bring an appetizer and a bottle of champagne as our contribution to the evening. The cuisine was to be Mexican, so I decided to make guacamole and salsa. After phoning to check for availability, I took Four and One to the posh supermarket with me in the morning to buy ripe avocados and the other ingredients. Four was quite keen to go as they have tiny, child-sized trolleys – just right for ramming into the backs of elderly ladies’ legs – and the baskets are below parent eye-line so the occasional sweetie can be snuck in without detection. We found the avocados and spent some time feeling them for ripeness, discussing the perfect texture, planning where to plant the tree that Four was going to grow from the pip (she is a keen botanist). Then we moved on to tomatoes.

Four:

“Didja know?  Tomatoes are actually a FRUIT?. But they don’t taste like a fruit. That’s what is so weird about the world”

Meanwhile, One quietly amused himself by taking a tangerine from the bottom of a carefully stacked pyramid and watching the rest tumble onto the ground while my back was turned for a nanosecond. The manager of the produce department, a tall, imposing man with a spotless green apron and large, menacing gloves on, approached us with a cool professional smile as I was scrambling to put the fruit back on the shelf.

“Can I help you at all?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, we seem to have had an accident with the oranges”

“You’re the lady who called about the avocados”

“Um, yes, that’s right”

“I could tell by the accent”

“Oh, well, yes.”
Busted again. I need to start faking an American accent when I call for services so I can preserve my anonymity.

 “I’m very sorry about the tangerines”

“Not at all, these things happen from time to time. We’ll put them right back for you”

 

And this would have all been a very pleasant exchange if it had not been for One, who at that precise moment was repeating his tangerine trick with a pile of shiny red apples while I was once again not paying proper maternal attention. I didn’t dare look at the produce manager, but told One off in a loud, showy manner and grabbed them both and ran for the checkout.

“What about the ducks?” asked Four.

???

“We don’t have time to feed the ducks today, I told her, hurriedly and bundled them into the car.

Due to our unplanned and hasty exit, we had to go to the other shop to get the remainder of ingredients, but this time I was a little wiser and strapped One into the big grocery cart while Four and I bought onions, coriander etc.

“What about the ducks?” she asked again.

WTF?

“I’m sorry, darling, no ducks today”

“But..”

“No time for ducks, sweetheart, now come on, let’s go home and start cooking for the party!”

“But!”

“Come on!” I sang merrily and hurried us back home where One promptly conked out and Four and I set about unpacking groceries and preparing to cook.

We peeled the avocados and mashed them with the potato masher. We diced the onions wearing our swim masks and snorkels ( a great trick for all you who are prone to onion tears like me). We chopped tomatoes (a fruit, that is what is so weird about the world). We shredded coriander, or cilantro for those North Americans among us. We squeezed limes and made a side order of limeade for our troubles.

And then again the question

“Mummy, what about the ducks?”

“Darling, why do you keep on asking about the ducks? We’re not going to feed the ducks today and that’s final”

She looked at me bewilderedly and said

 

 “But how are we going to make quackamole without a duck?”

 

That is what is so weird about the world.