Carol’s Column

Things aren’t what they used to be – or what they should be for that matter

I brushed my teeth with shaving cream on New Year morning.

Which was a rotten start to 1983.

You might be wondering why I didn’t use toothpaste – it’s so much more conventional.

Simple really.

Someone had placed the tube of shaving cream – which we use to make snow on Christmas trees, old men’s beards, play smoke and rabbit’s tails – in my toothmug.

“Listen, who’s been at the shaving cream?” I yelled in my early-morning voice that my husband endearingly calls my death rattle.

“Mummy, I needed to make a white crown for the ice maiden,” my daughter answered sweetly, her nine-year-old dimples dimpling and her tiny nose crinkling.

“And,” she continued, “you always told me to put things back where I found them.”

I was grateful but not satisfied.

“Nicky, I think the ice maiden in your play should wear a cardboard crown, not a foam one. It’ll melt.”

“Yes, Mummy, that’s the whole point. When Vanessa does her sun goddess bit, then Fiona’s got to melt.”

My husband was unsympathetic when I recounted the toothbrushing tale to him.

“I don’t know why you complain so much,” he said. “It bubbled and foamed, didn’t it? What more do you want?”

I should know by now, one can never win.

Somehow they grow children and husbands more clever these days.

It must be something to do with the Supa-Dupa 97-vitamin-get-you-going cereal they eat for breakfast.

As I said, it’s a rotten way to start the New Year.

But then, one by one, my New Year resolutions have shrivelled up and vanished.

Take this ‘back to school bit’.

Not for me and mine the frantic, last-minute dash to buy trousers, rulers, satchels, books, shirts, knickers and sandwich wrap.

No, I resolved I’d do all my shopping in December.

So at the beginning of the holidays, I cunningly decided to fit them out for school six weeks ahead of everyone else.

I hadn’t bargained for the: “Oh, Madam, you must be joking. We’re completely out of school shoes. Our new stock only arrives in January.”

Or: “Exercise books? But it’s Christmas – what do you need exercise books for at this time of the year.”

Or: “Madam, come back early next year for shirts, blazers, dresses, pencils, pens and satchels.”

So we did.

Go back in January.

Last Tuesday, the day before school started, to be precise.

To find that stocks had been and gone.

Which left us in somewhat desperate straits.

There’s nothing like compromise.

“Shut up, Ralph. Whaddya mean those shoes are both for left feet. So what?

“They’re the right size, aren’t they? They’re new. They’re black. What more do you want? You can’t have everything in life.”

“Jamie, stop griping. That safari suit looks great with the jacket hanging on your knees.

“Of course, it’s not too long – there’s plenty of room for growing. You’ll be able to wear it for six years.”

But kids are the limit.

Take oldest son Barry.

“Ma,” he said to me the other day, “I don’t want to be difficult or sound ungrateful.”

I knew immediately he was going to be difficult and ungrateful.

He’s a direct descendant from his father and indeed follows the patriarchal tradition that has been handed down through the ages.

“Why did you buy me and Ralph purple blazers when we go to Greenside High and we have to wear green blazers?”

What a ridiculous question, I thought to myself.

“What a ridiculous question,” I said.

“I bought them at a half-price sale – it’s only the colour that’s a little different, otherwise they’re perfect. They’ve got two sleeves, two armholes, three pockets, two gold buttons – what more do you need from a blazer?”

“Mom, you realise we’re likely to be reprimanded, jacked, gated, suspended, possibly even expelled if we wear purple blazers to school.”

“Especially purple blazers with badges saying ‘The Society of Frothblowers’,” observed my second son Ralph.

He’s always been a man of few words.

“So, a little bit of adversity builds muscles,” I retorted as I retired gracefully to my boudoir to tear out my hair.

No, it’s not been a good start to the year.

Things can only get better.

Or can they?

On Friday morning, I received a phone call from my daughter’s teacher.

“Good morning, Mrs Lazar,” she said. “We have a slight problem with Nicky. I don’t know if you are aware that she has a tube of shaving cream in her satchel.”

“Don’t panic, it’s not what it seems,” I replied. “She needs it for the ice maiden.”

“The ice maiden?”

It took a long time to explain, which made me agree with Shirley Conran when she said: “Life’s too short to stuff a mushroom.”

Or anything else for that matter.

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