'What's this?'

I spent Easter Friday and Saturday helping Bubu pack up her house.  Actually, I spent Saturday helping Bubu pack up because one minute after starting work on Friday, I questioned her logic.  She wanted to empty the contents of a room - furniture, boxes, blankets and fabric - into the hallway to enable the Persian carpet to be vacuumed and rolled up.  Surely, it would make sense to pack up the things then attack the carpet.

     ‘Catherine, stop.’  She turned to Kibby and Sutchy.  ‘Keep going boys.’

     I pleaded with her a minute longer, maybe three mintues.  

     ‘Catherine, go and see Jenny Cory.’

     I imagined having a crystal ball (there was probably one buried somewhere) and I gazed into the watery orb.  The day before me involved more of these situations and my slow decline into irreversible insanity. Or I could spend the day with Jenny, a bestie of two-plus decades. I left in a cloud of dust and dust mites.

     By five, my jaw muscles were aching from excessive talking and I headed back to Bubu’s.

     Saturday was more productive.  However I was continually picking up an object and asking Bubu, ‘What’s this?’ and ‘Can I chuck it out?’ with increasing exasperation.  I naturally assumed many of her ‘collections’ were better placed in landfill or the op shop.

     It went like this, all day.

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a visor type contraption.
     ‘It belongs to the bird cage.’
     ‘So I’ll chuck it out?’ I was eternally hopeful.
     ‘No, keep it.’

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a ceramic lid.  I hoped its base was crushed into a thousand pieces so I could chuck the lid.
     ‘It belongs to my water dispenser.’
     ‘Can I chuck it?’
     ‘No, the bottom is somewhere. In there.’  “In there” was the laundry piled a metre high with towels and sheets. 

     ‘Bubu, what’s this?’ of a small, synthetic bag containing little pieces of wood.
     ‘I don’t know.  Let me see.’  Pause.  ‘It’s guitar stuff.’
     ‘Chuck it out?’  There wasn’t a guitar in sight.
     ‘No, I want to keep it.’ 

     

     Sigh.

     We survived the day together.

     The following morning, Bubu got revenge.  I was leaning back in a chair at the dining table, my feet on a chair so my torso and thighs made a wide V.  Bubu stopped as she was walking past.

     ‘Catherine, what’s this?’  She was pointing to my torso.

     I looked down to the fabric of my singlet.  ‘Nothing.’

     ‘No, look, this.’  She was closer, pointing.

     ‘There’s nothing.’  I smoothed the fabric several times as if there might be a prickle.

     ‘It’s a little roll of fat.  Very womanly.’  And she walked off.  

     Very good, Bubu.  I’ll pay that one.  

     As I tucked the errant flesh back under the waistband of my  shorts, I lamented that I could not simply chuck it out.