Folks TIS ME WONKA and better late than never I always say although some might moan on about being on time BUT I have my flaws just like you humans SO ON WITH THE best bloggy in the known universe - Owner has pestered me to upload the fourth in the conversations with wonka series so I have - obviously it is very funny and AS it is a short story you won't have to use all your concentration powers overlong!! And folks, this last week has been VERY INTENSE with Owner going right off her rocker about the bins. YES I said the bins. Remember folks in the end, it is the little things that make us OR break us. We all (me, Rug and Squeaka) had to stand down whilst she went on her flurry of shouting (to no one there) banging doors (we were the only witnesses to that) and letter writing (I have never seen a note written so fast...and photocopied) and then handposting it to all the so-called neighbours (well they were up to then.X) And all folks because Owner's bin was left out in the street whilst all the other bins (five folks.X) were trundled back into their stables. The word petty and selfish was shouted about in between the door banging and to cap it all the pigeon's best fat ball feeder had fallen down. BUT I am pleased to report that after this ranting and raving Owner did settle back down to around number three setting on the moodometer and us three all settled back down to being
1. fed on demand
2. Using both cat trays (there is a new one.TICK x) at will
3. asking for more food the second Owner sat down hours later worn out by all the shouting and posting ranting notes to the neighbours.X
You might say folks it was a typical Fridee night.
ON WITH THE STORY!! it is called 'Wonka again and Baba too'
and is on #smashwords with all the others XX
Wonka again and Baba too
Published by Madeleine Masterson at
Smashwords
Copyright 2013 Madeleine Masterson
We were in the midsummer now or as
I liked to call it, in the bleak mid- summer.
In keeping with the new family dynamics I felt a total flop and failure.
‘Don’t tell me about it!’ shrieked
Wonka as I started my whine about career changes and personal development. Well I had to tell someone. Yes, I had divulged to the nice GP that the
new part-time job that had seemed so full of promise, so right, so very me was
the opposite. I think there is a
philosopher who has made grand theories based on this kind of happening; the
mirage of a shimmering job opportunity that when you get to it fades back into
the stony dead end job it was all the time.
It wasn’t Nietzsche but it should have been, or maybe one of the other
German team, when they weren’t busy dissecting god.
‘Baba’s been pat and mick.’
announced Wonka, and looking down I followed a trail that led from the dining
room, through the kitchen and into the bathroom. ‘That’s it.’ I shouted, stomping around
searching for wipes and cloths and cleaning things. Baba was stationed by the poor back door,
hoping to escape from the mayhem and Wonka was already upstairs peeking from
the bedroom door. I just needed a few
things to go right, and then I wouldn’t need to shout.
How was I to know, following one of
the most arduous and complex interviews consisting of pre-arranged questions
(this is fatal) and four intense interviewers, that the job would turn out to
be on the level of a school leaver who fancied a few hours doing
something? The handing in of my notice
to the other anxiety ridden job had turned upon the new one being a chance to
relax, show off my multiple talents and have a bit of a life on the side.
I mean the work life balance thing,
everyone was after one of these. Anyhow,
after three days questioning my sanity, my age (am I a school leaver? No) and considering
massive stress levels (according to Wonka I did), I walked out.
‘You’ve never walked out!’ accused
Wonka, no doubt fearful of starving.
‘I couldn’t stand it! Being treated like an office junior!’ I
moaned, but of course Wonka had a point.
The credit card you will remember was a life saver before and goodness
knows the company kept sending me letters about raising my credit limit. Any day now I would be able to buy a house
with it. The joyous moment of telling
the employers to get stuffed faded and was replaced by a more down to earth
one, that is the here and now. Lordy.
‘What’s for tea?’ Wonka cuffed Baba
who was patiently waiting by his six saucers, and jumped up on the small
surface next to the cooker. We’ll have
to economise I warned, now that I’m on the breadline. Wonka was having none of it and refused the
cat food that Ruggles our best stray wolfed down. Baba’s special diet, any food known to any
supermarket that he could keep down, mustn’t be affected by my demise. Maybe it was me that had to cut things out. This thought quietened me down and had the
side effect of making me lose my appetite, which under the circumstances was a
big plus.
Financial advice anyone?
Alongside the diminishing finances
and the increasing anxiety and stress was another fear factor. This was getting over my fear of hospitals. Just being in one had me feeling dizzy and
sick, and this year alone had warranted practically moving in. Wonka reminded me of the book I used to lend
my clients in the job now relegated to ‘a good job’. ‘You know that one about facing your fears’,
he trilled ‘like driving on the motorway!’
Oh yes I remembered it
alright. Fine in print and lovely
sitting there in a group jotting a few goals down. It turned out that a new and more fulfilling
life was only a few fears away. All I
needed to do was Do It!. I still had the
little diagram somewhere but could not bring to mind what fears I committed to
facing. Hopefully I’d put paid to the
putting up with poor situations (walking out of job), and getting in touch with
friends instead of working myself to death (on the back burner).
You do find, that given a
situation, instead of philosophising about it, talking it through with a friend
(who) mulling it round for a week or two or just ignoring it, generally you
have to deal with it. Either sooner or
later. Perhaps Nietzsche prescribed on
this, not sure, maybe it came later with the logical positivists. The long car journeys to hospitals housing
aged parent killed two birds with the one stone, a) fear of driving on the
motor way, and fear of driving anywhere other than the town I lived in and b)
being in a hospital with all the smells, the equipment, the consequences of
illness and dying.
Yes there I was doing it, and not a
book in sight.
The hierarchy in the hospitals was
bewildering. They all knew who they were
and you didn’t. The only staff I felt
clear about was the cleaners and even then I was intimidated by their brisk
passage in and out of the room. Wonka
had of course advised on being assertive and told me to walk tall. It was no good though, as soon as I entered
the building, it sucked me in. I crept
into the ward and whispered to the variety of uniforms, and when it came to
being a nice kind visitor I failed full-time.
‘It’s like the hotel in the
Shining’ I bleated to Wonka, creeping back into my own home,’ like this
personality overshadowing you and all these wards and rooms, not to mention
Mother!’
Wonka warned against being dramatic
and said there wasn’t one character in ‘The Shining’ who resembled Mother. Not even the ghosts. Perhaps Stephen King could base his next best
seller on a hospital then I ventured, plenty of material there. And all those romances based on sick beds
and nurses? What on earth was attractive
about it. Nothing.
The summer wore on with me on my
trips back and forth, ranting about hospitals and the care system. More like the don’t care system! I shouted
banging the phone down. Baba meowed in
my face and clung onto my jeans. This
made Wonka hiss and pop a paw out and I ended up shouting at both of them.
‘And I’m not sorry! Though what for
and who to, I didn’t know.
;When the brown envelope arrived
detailing a speeding offence, Wonka took action and ran straight upstairs and
under the bed. Baba asked to go out.
After two cups of my healthy tea and a couple of painkillers for the headache I
was sure to get in a minute, I read it through slowly.
Ah yes, there was no denying the
rate I’d been travelling at on a motorway no less. ‘Look at it this way, said Wonka, a while
back you couldn’t even imagine being on a motorway!’ And I certainly tried to see the speeding
offence in a more constructive light.
However the cost of it all was dampening. And the three points bit.
It turns out more or less everyone
has been on the course designed to halt speeding forever. It is run by the police and this other
training company who must be making a packet.
The room was full of moaning speeders, going on and on about where they
were stopped and it wasn’t fair. When I
had calmed down enough to read through my options as a speeder, I noted the
choice of going on a half a day course that cost an arm and a leg but with the
juicy carrot of not having the points on my up to now clean licence.
‘Cost of?’ enquired Wonka, poised
to chase Baba off the side. ‘ Well it’s
not cheap……’ I daren’t think about it,
it cost twice as much as the fine I wasn’t going to pay. No, instead I was going to drive for an hour
and a half to the nearest centre, taking up nearly a day out of my life (where
is that work life balance) and be anxiety ridden about the credit card. More than this, I distinguished myself by
being the only one caught speeding on a motorway. The shame of it. Driving home I of course wanted to go really
fast on the country roads. ‘ It’s self-harming behaviour!’ observed Wonka when
I trickled back home. ‘It’s risk taking!’.
I crawled into the kitchen and crammed down some chocolate. The sunlight poured in and instead of
cheering me up it just focussed me on the dust on top of the cooker. Did anyone exist who could beat such dust I
pondered.
A little later I took stock.
When everything is lining up to be
relentlessly, well relentless, the thing to do advised Wonka, is make a list of
the good stuff. I had used this ploy
many a time when surrounded by confused and anxious clients, from the ‘good’
job. ‘Good’ job in a relative sense as
it swiped all the work life balance and left me stranded with about five
minutes to myself. But forgetting this,
in the light of the ghastly three day job – ‘the one you walked out on!’ jeered
Wonka, yes that one, (bad job) I scrabbled through old hand outs, and
workshops, trying to get a tiny hook on my life to date. Admittedly, I had been caught praying the odd
time or two, using strange mantras and even resorting to self -hypnosis. This failed though because Wonka and Baba
came sniffing round me as soon as I did the deep breathing. ‘It’s if I stop you want to take notice!’ I
shouted sitting back up and feeling even tenser.
‘Counselling?’ prompted the nice
GP, putting me on the spot. I had
enthused about trying counselling a few visits back, only as a
distraction. ‘erm….’ Talking about it all was not high on my
agenda, and even more alarming to have to take the advice I’d been dishing out
to woeful, crying clients. Surely I
could recover without telling all, swallowing tablets and weeping at the
slightest thing?
Ranged in front of a new and
enthralling box set, I wondered what all the fuss had been about. I felt calm, enjoying myself, and not an
anxious thought in sight. And as for the
counselling thing, I would tell the GP I was talking to a colleague, versed in
the wonders of person centred therapy.
Yes, a few phone calls, a few meetings, and my many years of mixed upness
about parents, why I was here, and the point of going on, would all no doubt
become clear.
‘I’m starving’ shrieked Wonka,
breaking my positive train of thought.
On the other hand, and as he constantly reminded me, looking after him,
Baba and the rest was giving me some sort of purpose. I had often lectured clients on the
companionship of animals, and one of the students was even doing a whole
dissertation on it. Wonka approved and
pointed out how often he had been such a friend in need. ‘in need of food!’ I mumbled, tripping round
Baba and shaking more expensive biscuits into a saucer.
Apart from the volleys of sneezing,
and smelling out the entire house, Baba had a new trick up his sleeve. I had recently purchased a packet of enticing
little biscuits, described as pockets of delight and your cat will go mad for
them. Well Wonka ignored them completely
but Baba, he did go mad for them. So
mad, that mid gobble he would sneeze and for a horrid minute or two seem to
linger between this world and the next.
The world that is supposed to be but one room away. He would then progress to the next stage, of
making a rasping noise in his throat, followed by coughing things up.
Me and Wonka were frozen statues,
witnessing this and would undergo relief (for a change) when he got to the
sickly stage. Any other cat would have
picked up and gone on as normal. Not so
Baba. This was a false dawn, as he would
then dart off, with me and Wonka in pursuit, to find a resting place to
continue the horrid rasping noise. I
could only relax and breathe easy hours later when he suddenly resumed being
Baba again. So biscuits were off the
menu until I forgot, or he pinched some of Wonka’s.
In the meantime, I had nursing
homes to visit and houses to clear. It
was a time of massive confrontation with my life so far and as usual Wonka cheered
me on. ‘You can do it!’ he shouted after
me as I crept out for yet another fraught journey. ‘Soon be over!’ he soothed as I came crying
home with more bags and bundles.
Goodness knows I had enough of my own baggage without adding to it. Wonka again led the way, jumping into the
cupboard and laying in the space I’d made for the new baggage. ‘Oh I give up’ I wept, shuffling through it
all. Would daughter be obliged to wade
through all my belongings if I dropped dead?
The Front bedroom took on the guise
of a junk shop come crafts fair. Mother
had often gone on about Dad’s carvings.
Wood carvings, not joints of meat that is, and how many there were. The front bedroom now resembled some sort of
exhibition, of wooden animals and boxes.
Baba had managed to find a space in between Teakie, a life size carving
of a cat sitting up, and a squirrel.
Being black he was sometimes hard to pick out in the gloom but then he
would spoil it by either sneezing or choking.
In a mysterious possibly Karma like way, Dad had returned to us, and
Mother in a more challenging and definitely still here way, was rejecting all
attempts to settle.
I finally plumped for a nursing
home miles away, with a room that Mother took against the minute she got
there. Wonka reassured me that this was
a typical reaction amongst old folk, and just because the Nurses intimidated me
mustn’t put me off. Dusting off the hand-outs
on ‘being assertive’, I thought about doing a storyboard or two. ‘Did you tell them where to get off?’
queried Wonka, peering out of the bay window as I shuffled in loaded with
shopping and cat litter. ‘Why trouble,’
I shouted,’ to be all reasonable and fair and sensible when you can have a good
old emotional outburst instead!’
Knocking back a small glass of red
wine and moaning to daughter put it in perspective. Wonka was busy digging a giant hole in the
new cat litter tray positioned in the bath.
I had hit on the idea of having two trays to get round Baba’s toilet
needs. He had a luxury covered in tray
that try as it might could not disguise his offerings. Wonka meanwhile had a small red open tray
that barely took his size. Yes I was
making a small headway into the twists and turns of my life, and what with the
GP, the box sets and the helpful colleague, I had a bit of a support network as
the social workers like to call it.
‘I know what I’d call it! Said
Wonka, and went off looking for Baba.
THE END !!
Folks I hope this has cheered up your weekends wherever you are AND a very happi St Patrick's Day to the green isle folks too XX
Remember to be more like Owner and SPEAK UP and SPEAK OUT more!! That's the way to get results Big Love Wonka XX
