safe

I bumped into Mrs Lovely.
“Apparently, I’m Uber Bitch from Hell today,” she said. “I’d even rather be out here, with Muffin in the rain,” (she indicated erstwhile perfect hair and both of us avoided taking in Muffin who was busy dry humping this footstool of a dog he favours for stress relief). “They all hate me.”
“More than usual?” I asked.
“I’ve lost the router.”

Modern parenting requires that we let our children go on the internet, “for homework,” and onto games consoles, “because I’ve done my homework,” and then – often while crouched over our own phones scrolling and clicking and somewhat glassy-eyed – deplore the beast that electronics make of our offspring and crossly stride round the house confiscating remotes and controls and, in Mrs Lovely’s case of final defiance, the router.

“I put it somewhere safe,” she wailed. “I only wanted Lulu to do her homework but she wouldn’t get off Facebook.”
“Fatal,” I said. A Safe Place has cost us all dear, and I’ve seen scraps break out between random teens in the library over Facebook so resonance was there.
“And I’m just worried I’ve left it in TK Maxx. But that’d be Melanie’s fault.”

Melanie, good twin, it seemed had expressed a desire for heels.
“So I found some, £89 –”
“£89!!” I squealed, “Are you MAD!”
“Reduced … to … £7!” finished Mrs Lovely triumphantly. “They had a six inch heel and I, well I felt like Prince Charming with Cinderella’s slippers.”
“Jeez, six inches! Is she mad?” Some slutty old Cinderella, no wonder she took a tumble come pumpkin time.
“Not. High. Enough,” said Mrs Lovely.
We were both silenced.
“But I feel too tall for heels at 5’7”,” I said.
“Same here,” she said. “But, no, Melanie wanted 7. Or. 8. So I had to take them back and I’m just wondering about the bag, and the router, and would I have thought that that was a safe place?”

We pondered the tippytoey nonsense of heels of 8” and the folly of safe places which often have to be drummed up at speed and regretted later.
“How tall is she?” I asked.
“5’8”. And the boys are all … so high.” Her illustrative hand hovered around our waists. We had munchkin men and monster girls.
“And what about Lulu?” I asked, needing a quick fix of Lulu. It had been a while.
“Shaved hair,” she said, closing her eyes. “All round here, round the back, up the sides. Floppy bit. You can tell she hates it. But she won’t say a word.”

I thought of all the words we don’t say. And the ones we do. Usually the nonsense ones. Lives lived on a level of exchanging trivia and needing something to laugh at to take the edge off. And that sometimes we take an extra turn around the field, despite the rain and the mud and the dogs being vile just because it provides a beautiful void and is in itself a safe place.