The weekend report.

Waiting for the Windscreen

On Saturday, as a special family outing, we took Sonia Kluger to the windscreen repair shop to fix the extra air conditioning that I had added to her features list during the week.

Want to know what is not fun?

Waiting with the family in a demountable office and then paying a bill that would bring tears to your eyes.

We then headed up the coast to visit Jabba the Hut and to mend relations between myself and my beloved after such a bill.

As usual, we stopped at Umina Woolworth’s for supplies. For the record, may I just say that THAT particular supermarket is FAR SUPERIOR than any of my local offerings. And cheap! We split up, each of us assigned an item to hunt down and return to the seafood counter.

Jack was assigned to getting two onions.

I was fingering up some avocados real good when the loudspeaker boomed into life with the following announcement.

“Would the mother of Jack please come to the front of the store. Jack is wearing a pink t-shirt and has blue hearing aids.”

Now if I was a betting woman, I would hazard a guess that that might have been the fruit of my loins.

I rushed like a crazy woman and saw Jack, standing with a lady dressed in a Woolies uniform, holding her hand. His eyes had formed a positive meniscus of tears, which erupted when he saw me.

I dropped to my knees and hugged him, close to tears myself. Memories of being lost in shopping centres filled my head. It is not nice. I thanked everyone who was looking at me like I was the worst mother in the world, and gave the Green Uniformed lady a hug for good measure.

As I walked away holding Jack, I half expected someone to start the slow clap. You know, like they do in the movies. One person stands up and slow claps, them the next, until everyone cheers widely and I am presented with a bunch of flowers and hold them high in one hand, with Jack held high in the other.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead I saw Mr Woog fingering the avocados and ripped a few shreds off him via a half closed mouth, hissing with unpleasantness.

Because of course, it was all his fault. He was to be staying at the seafood counter.

I told Jack I would never, ever leave him again and will always be holding his hand.

By the time we got the Jabba though, I was totally fed up with him and his brother bickering and insisted that they go out on their bikes and not to return until the street lights come on.

That is totally normal…… right?

Have you ever lost your kid in a public space?

Did your Mum ever lose you?