As a working mummy, I appreciate the fact my job allows for
some flexibility during work hours, which means I can duck away from my
computer for a while and make the time up later. This is especially helpful on days like
today, which started with a phone call from my parents asking for help moving
stuff into their shed.
It seems like a reasonable request doesn’t it? But when I arrived, I discovered my mum
failed to mention "stuff" was my dad's ancient, rusty Calais. It was finally being laid to rest in the shed
at the back of their property, which is up a decent incline. Now, the Calais isn’t running, so my dad had
decided to pull it into the shed using his ride-on mower. So I thought I would be carrying around a few
boxes, and instead found myself sitting in the burning hot sunshine, wearing my
cute work pants and heels, at the wheel of the trusty ride-on.
We started with my dad pushing from behind the car with me on
the mower in front, revving the engine hard as I dared. But the Calais refused to climb the
hill. My dad quickly decided that I wasn’t
“man enough” for mower duties, so I was demoted down to car pushing while he
drove.
So with my dad at the wheel, we actually managed to get the
car up the hill, but just as the front wheels rolled into the shed, the rope
attached to the mower broke. Of course,
I didn’t see it happen, I only became aware something was wrong as the Calais
began to roll back towards me.
Quick as a bunny, I moved out of the way. Then I realised the Calais was rolling
directly towards where I had parked. I
had driven there in my husband’s car and the ute was right in the path of the
on-coming Calais.
Now, to put it lightly, husband and daddy do NOT get
along. My brain flashed me a very clear
image of the unpleasant conversation ahead of me if the two cars collided. “Hi honey!
Oh that massive panel damage?
Just my dad’s rusty Calais making vigorous love to your work vehicle…” I was not prepared for that outcome, and so I
threw myself back behind the Calais.
In hindsight, I could have easily become a candidate for a
Darwin Award. My pretty work sandals
proved highly ineffectual in the loose gravel as I strained to slow the runaway
car down. I slipped and landed flat on
my side with my head coming dangerously close to the tyres. Skinned from ankle to thigh, I scrambled up
and realised I was about to lose the battle.
I closed my eyes and resigned myself to death by crushing, still a
better alternative than informing my husband about damage to his car.
With only seconds to spare, my dad made it to the Calais and
yanked on the handbrake. Slightly shaky,
I excused myself to head inside for Band-Aids to treat the blood running freely
down my leg. My mum sat in the kitchen,
engrossed in a work phone call and oblivious to my near-death experience. Mixing water and Dettol in the sink, I looked
up in time to see my dad had decided to press on without me: he had reattached the rope and was revving the mower as hard as it could go. As I
watched in horror, the front wheels of the mower lifted off the ground and the
mower began to flip over on top of my dad.
“FUDGE!!!” I yelled (or something similar) at the top of my
lungs, forgetting my mum was two feet away on the phone to her boss. I dropped the bloody cotton balls and dashed
for the door, panicked that our backyard was about to become a scene from
Lassie. “What’s that girl? Pa’s trapped under the tractor!”
But just as my dad was about to become the squishy meat in a
mower/ gravel sandwich, he managed to somehow swing a leg backwards and hold
the mower over his head. I reached him
just as he wrested the mower back on all four wheels.
“Are you okay?” I asked breathlessly.
“Yeah, of course,” he calmly replied. “I meant to do that.”
Yup. Sure you did.
Half an hour and two more broken ropes later, we finally had
the Calais moved into its final resting place.
No harm done, except my mum having to convince her boss clients don’t
normally experience loud profanities while on the phone with her, and I’ll be
wearing long pants to meetings for a few weeks while my gravel rash heals.
Just another day at the office really…
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