We all have our bad days

We all have a bad day now and then. It was my turn yesterday. It started on my way to work and my phone rang. It was the lovely Snapdragon.

“I made a bit of an accident,” she giggled hysterically.

“Which bit? The bit before the crash, or the shouting afterwards?” I asked.

“The crash itself,” she said. “I reversed out of the nursery school parking lot … right into a car’s driver-side door.”

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “The woman in the other car is extremely unpleasant about the entire thing, though.”

“And your broom?”

Some men never learn…

It’s at this stage of the conversation that Snapdragon showed her inability to focus on the issue at hand and the polite conversation took an unpleasant turn.

Which was still much better than the little formality I dread every morning – my pre-work shopping.

I usually stop at a supermarket in Menlo Park where I buy my energy drinks and cheese curls for the day. And at the cash register, the cashier always asks three questions: “Plastic?”, “Do you have a loyalty card?” and the one that spoils the rest of the day, “Are you a pensioner?”

For the last year I have denied, argued and reacted in an irritated way to this question. But yesterday I simply had no fight left in me and I submitted.

“Yes. Yes, I am a pensioner.” The cashier stared at me. “But you don’t look like a pensioner!”

“What!?”

“Yes,” she said. “You have grey hair and wrinkles, but you have young and very naughty eyes.”

Bless her beautiful little heart.

I’m left with a lot to do this weekend. This morning I have to deal with the woman who drives the expensive German car that shared “a bit of an accident” with Snapdragon.

Trust Snapdragon’s inner snob – she might not drive a luxury sedan, but she refuses to crash into anything less.

And tomorrow I must erect a board at our house: “This house is occupied by a cute chick and a grumpy old man.”

I can live with the accusation that I’m grumpy – it’s true. But I’ll have to remove the word “old”.

I’m not old. I have young and very naughty eyes.

Dirk Lotriet. Picture: Alaister Russell

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