Carol’s Column

Make your ecosystem work

NOTHING is what it seems to be these days.

Take my car. OK, so it was a cold, breath-freezing morning and the sun hadn't quite made it through the icicles yet, but that was no excuse for the red light to flash so aggressively.

It took me 15 minutes to page through the *faults* section of the car owner's manual before I discovered the sinister flash meant no oil.

Just then, my oldest unmarried son zapped by on his bicycle, his muscles glowing in the frozen morning.

Muscles glowing?

"Put on your jersey, you'll catch a cold and why are you shining like that?" I shouted through the window.

He looked pained. "Ma, I'm not cold and I'm shining because I've rubbed motor oil on my muscles to lubricate them. I meant to tell you."

So who needs a car on a cold morning? It's fun walking a kilometre to the bus stop and getting frost bite of the big toe.

□ □ □

Later that day I saw a bright-green shape bounding through the sweat peas. And when I say "sweat", I mean sweat. Other sweet peas grow, ours sweat every centimetre of the way and the end result is always a sparse show of three or four flowers. Per 50 plants.

Good heavens, I must be seeing things, I thought to myself as I watched the green creature whip past.

The Institute for Unexplained Phenomena was helpful. "Examine it closely," they said, "approach it quietly and try and take a photograph."

I crept through the garden on all fours and triumphantly caught the creature full-frontal in a low tackle.

What on earth was Licquorice-the-labrador doing covered in mashed avocado pear?

"It's good for her complexion," said my daughter. "It'll make her skin glow."

So who wants a glowing labrador? A glowing son is more than enough.

□ □ □

This week I attended a lecture on environmental conservation.

The message was simple: "Nothing is what it seems! Everything can be used in many different ways! Be inventive! Creative! Make your ecosystem work."

So I did.

I recycled my neighbour's barking dogs, the newspapers and my husband's aunt.

Loath to throw anything away, I served the same leftovers until they walked to the table themselves.

Entering into the spirit of the thing, my third son filled my mother-in-law's petrol tank with chicken soup and abandoned bathing in order to conserve water.

I had no idea how easy it was to utilise my environment. In one fell swoop I brought my kitchen into the bedroom.

Why only last night, I made an exotic mash of bananas and cooking oil to enrich my hair.

Mud rubbed on to plump thighs was reputedly superb for breaking down cellulite not to mention yoghurt patted into double chins.

The mixture of ash and sand on my nose removed impurities.

Vanilla essence softened elbows and on my eyes I placed two slices of peeled cucumbers to obliterate the bags that threatened to engulf the eyeballs.

Cream cheese and chives placed strategically over the mid section, reduced Cooper's droop and revitalised the skin.

Thus my husband found me when he returned from work.

What followed, was not pleasant. In fact it could be called ugly.

The man who promised to nurture me through thick and thin, for better or for worse, took one look at me and picked up the phone.

"Hello," I heard him say, "is that the Norwood Cleansing Department. Aha . . . good. My wife has recycled herself into a mound of refuse . . . you can . . . good. No, I think a removal fee of R21 is cheap. Goodbye."

He put down the phone, flicked his cigar ash into my right hand. And smiled.

He wasn't joking.

■