My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

 

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
9 August 2013

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.....  Nah!  Who am I kidding?  My milkshake's not all that great.

The thing that really brings the boys to my yard, is my Jumping Castles.  It surely is.

In the summer months in particular, my yard is rather busy with people fetching and loading for their kids' birthday parties.  And rightly so.

At times it can feel a bit like Grand Central station, with cars and customers queuing at times.  Especially if people are punctual and stick to collection times.  There is no point in staggering collection times either, because most often people aren't punctual in any rate.  It's just the way it is.  And so sometimes it can be quite crazy, with everyone seeming to arrive all at the same glorious time.

A few years ago, I was busy doing Castles on a rather swamped Saturday morning.  There were cars coming and going, and at times, people standing in line to reverse up to my driveway in order to load up their Castle for their party or function.  And I remember one particular bakkie (pick-up) waiting it’s turn to collect.  There were quite a few people ahead of it.  And so the driver pulled a bit to the front and side and patiently waited.  After a while, the driver jumped out and walked over to me for a bit of a chat and to fill in the paperwork so long.  And as I glanced at his car, I saw the back of a petite lady with very curly blonde hair, sitting in the passenger seat.  And obviously, once the driver got out of the car, the blonde curly haired lady(his wife) scooted over to the driver’s seat, so that she could do the driving from this point on. 

Now the driver was a big and hefty fellow.  A farmer from Grabouw.  And though he was not overweight or fat, he was most definitely a big guy.  Strong as an ox by the look of things. 

Eventually the last client drove off, and the farmer bellowed in a deep and booming voice to his wife in the car, “REVERSE!”. 

Now, just to clarify, I see an extraordinary amount of reversing.  Probably more so than the average person.  Especially as reversing up to my garage, is the only successful way to even attempt to lift and load a big, heavy Jumping Castle into a vehicle.  Added to that, the entrance to my driveway is not the biggest and it requires a fair bit of skill and manoeuvring, so as to avoid the pillars on either side.  Well, the farmer’s wife executed a perfect reverse, with the farmer giving very little instructions and directions along the way.  In fact, he barely glanced over to the bakkie.  And once the vehicle was stationary, the driver’s door popped open and little blonde curly haired boy jumped down.

Well blow me down!  I do believe that my jaw dropped.  The “petite little blonde wife”, had not been a wife after all.  Nor even a woman.  It was the farmer’s eleven year old son.

Quite naturally I gawked at the little kid and expressed my surprise.  The farmer proudly told me that his son had been driving on the farm for quite a few years already, and that he was proficient at driving bakkies, tractors, motorbikes, etc.  All without a license of course.  Yet with the freedom of space afforded to kids growing up on a farm, he had been given the opportunity to hone his driving skills, from a ridiculously young age already.

I was blown away and couldn’t wait to tell my own family exactly what I had seen.

And a bit later that day, all five of us were busy driving somewhere when I related the story to them all.  At about eleven years old himself, Luke was beyond impressed.  Completely and utterly mesmerised by my story and the thought of a boy of his age, driving too.  A boy that had obviously been elevated to hero-status.  Predictably five year old little Cole was wowed too.  He’s a boy and most boy things seemed to impress him.  And what with Grant also being a boy (albeit it in a man’s body), he too was suitably impressed.  All three of my boys, were shooting off questions hard and fast.  “How big was he?”.  “Did he really reverse the car all on his own?”.  “Why can’t I also drive?”.  “He’s just a little boy, but he can drive!”.  “I can’t believe he never hit the pillars!”.  “I wish I can also drive!”, etc, etc, etc.  And so the questions and exclamations from my merry men kept on flowing.  Palpable excitement all around.

Until one particularly piercing little girl voice, managed to make itself heard.  With one single question.

“Did the mommy also have blonde curly hair?”

I do believe that Grant took his eyes of the road and nearly incurred whiplash.  My boys were speechless and Amber’s brothers looked at her as if she had sprouted another head.

But luckily I understood perfectly.  Quite naturally it was an absolutely normal little girl question to ask.

I do believe I might have fibbed, and told Amber “yes”.  I had not seen the mother, and though I was able to answer most of my boys’ questions, I thought it was imperative that I answered my little Berry’s question too.

Furthermore, I completely understood her need for this most valuable of information.  As it certainly puzzled me too, because the son looked so different to his father.

Men!  Sometimes they can be so dense.

 

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