I don’t know about you but I think that each and every person has some sort of knack or talent for not making mistake. Whether it be a spelling problem, mental block or uncanny knack of losing items even when they try not to.
My knack has been to always bump, bruise or bang myself on items which by rights are injury proofed. My brother however was infamous, no not famous, but infamous for dropping his phone and more importantly and regularly, losing his keys.
Its due to his losing his keys that I became a dab hand at changing the barrels on door locks and often wondered if the man at the key cutting shop thought I was up to something shady as I was in there so often.
Now the tale I have to tell goes back to when we, my siblings and I, were all nippers and still thick as thieves so to speak, which basically meant that sometimes when one of us broke/lost something we would not just take turns in taking the blame but depending on severity of how pissed our folks were would depend who stepped up. For example, we used to joke that my Sister was my Dads fav and my Brother my Mums, now me, well I was only used in cases of one of us was in deep shit as when I was little I had snow white hair and big blue eyes and could melt you with the most awesome puppy dog eyes ever.
It was on one such occasion that I stepped up without really understand the consequences which resulted in my mum almost losing the plot and screaming hysterically and almost having a breakdown. Before I tell you how and why I shall have to give a little background for context;
Before we moved to Iran, we lived on a new housing estate in Cardiff and the surrounding area was more or less grassland and trees/forests (well to a 5year old they looked big enough to be a forest) and when we used to go ‘out to play’ we used to enjoy going to the Adventure Play Ground in said ‘forest’ and always with mums permission, as she knew we were sensible and would also to not go to the areas she said were off limits. One particular sunny day we all went frog catching down at the local pond/stream. With required bucket and small bag for scooping, myself and sibs trotted off. When we got there my brother immediately headed for the pond to get some frogs (as little boys do) and my sister and I went off the the nearby stream which led to a small tunnel (locally know as the black tunnel) which led into another stream which led eventually to the River Taff, to paddle and look for small fish. We had a great day, we got dirty and wet and loved every minute of it and eventually tottled back home for tea. When we got home, Mum shook her head as usual and told us we would all have to have a bath whilst trying to sound upset but the smile on her face gave it away. In those days when it came to bath time it never paid off to be the youngest. You see Mum would run a bath and you got bathed in decending order so my Sister, then Bro then me, I choose not to think about the colour or temp of the water by the time I hit it, I prefer to think of it a s a nice soapy white colour not the greyish tinge it actually had. If we (I) was very lucky and not too dirty, she would chuck all 3 of us in at the same time, but sadly not this particular day.
My Sister got washed first and then Mum had to shout Bro a couple of times before he came upstairs (yes he had an aversion to soap and water even at that age), eventually he was done then my turn. No more was thought about it until some weeks later.
We were all playing downstairs in the dining room ( colouring/reading/jigsaws etc) when Mum pops her head around the door and asks my Bro where the shed door key was, now as you can guess from the start of this tale my Bro was forever losing the key when he had it, usually he would pop it in his pocket, go out to play and it would fall out. Given that my Bro still had his card marked for another episode of wheel swallowing and trip to local Infirmary, I piped up that I thought I had it last and (big fat lie coming) and I left it on the kitchen table top. This of course had mum hunting inside cupboards and behind table tops in case it had fallen down the back but to no avail. This lie was the first lie I told my Mum and subsequently learnt never to do it again. If you told the truth, you may get a bollocking or grounded but she acknowledged the fact you owned up to your mistake and invariably she was a lot lighter on your punishment. A good lesson which stood us all in good stead in later life, sometimes being honest got us into more trouble but if you don’t lie then you cannot be caught out and thought dishonest, anyways;
In our back garden we used to have a swing set, you know the ones with 2 swings and a see saw type of swing, well I loved playing on those swings, come rain or shine, I was on it. Occasionally one of the other 2 and sometimes both would also play on them. My siblings used to take a HUGE amount of enjoyment putting me on one side of the see saw and pushing it really really high and scaring the living shit out of me ( a theme that ran between us 3 for most of our childhood, with smiles in hindsight I may add) and this one Saturday morning, there we were playing and a couple of next doors kids had come round too and we were all have fun. Mum comes out and tells our friends they have to go home as us 3 had to go and tidy our bedrooms now as we had not done it first, which is what we were supposed to do every Saturday morning to earn our pocket money (as well as other small chores). So off they went with a promise from Mum they could come back in the afternoon to play and have some tea.
My sister and I shared a bedroom and my bro, being the only boy, had a room to himself. Now it always struck us that my Mum would always go in and ‘finish’ off Bros bedroom (not sure if it was because he was her favourite or because she used to think boys couldn’t clean as well as girls) but us 2 girls would have to do our rooms ourselves. Mum came in our room waving something in her hand whilst asking how I thought it got into my Brothers room, low and behold she was waving the shed door key – I was busted, tried to think of a reason but failed and caved and told the truth. She was not impressed that I had lied but you could see she was pleased that I tried to help my brother. He also got a bollocking for not owning up to having ‘lost’ the key and allowing me to take the blame but all in all we got away with it, promising never to do it again. We finished tidying our rooms and asked if we could go back out to play in the back garden, we would call over the wall to our mates (lived next door) and continue with our fun until tea time. She said to wait a while but later on, yes we could.
Now I don’t know about you but whenever I smell freshly cut grass it always reminds me of home and happy memories of the times Mum would let me ‘help’ her cut the grass using the mower. On this particular Saturday lunchtime she said she was going to cut the back grass, I asked if I could help as usual but she said no as punishment for telling lies but I could sit on the back step and watch. Mum knew I would be gutted but it was a brilliant way of making me understand that lies have consequences and you take them and suck it up – no whinging. So now with said found shed door key she set about clearing toys, bikes, skates etc off the back grass ready for mowing.
I can remember the day clearly as I rushed to finish tidying my half of our room so I could get downstairs in time for mum to mow the lawn. When you came downstairs you would turn right and find yourself staring at our ‘backdoor’ and could see the path up to the back gate. On the left was the grass and swing set and on the right just past the back step (where I would sit) was the outside shed where all the usual stuff was stacked and gathered. I had just stepped down and turned in time to see my Mum unlock the shed, it was at this point I thought either Armageddon was happening or a monster was in our shed and about attack Mum. I have never from that day to this heard my Mum scream like that, she opened the door wide and what I can only describe as a swarm of frogs leaped out, im not talking just a few here im talking HUNDREDS, it was like a friggin biblical plague. They were on her head, chest and arms, covering the floor and grass hopping away as frogs do and Mam screaming and waving her arms about whilst at the same time slapping her head. I really cannot do the description justice but to this day i still chuckle at the memory, at the time I just went back upstairs to get my sibs to come and see/help. They came downstairs and as we watched my mums get the frogs off her and hoppity jump her way through back to the house and shut the back door to stop the frogs getting into the house my brother disappeared out of the front door and was gone for hours.
You see, remember me telling you about us going down to the pond and stream and getting back a bit manky so had to have a bath, well my brother had brought back a nearly half full metal bucket of frogs spawn and whilst my sister was in the bath first, put it in the shed. When he got undressed the shed key had gone under his bed where it stayed for about 3 months, just long enough for the spawn to grow into full frogs and for Mum to find it and set them free. Even now when we reminisce she still shudders at the thought and that is some 70 years later. Of course from that day on, no matter what, whenever my Mum opened a shed door she always stood behind it when opening, just in case.
My Brother of course eventually came home and was bollocked and sent to bed with the knowledge that he would never do it again or have access to the shed door key. For bloody weeks we would hear a bit of ribbit ribbit or see a frog or two hopping about and of course the neighbours were complaining to each other about this sudden invasion of frogs, Mum never owned up it was Bro and went along but even now I can see that wave and it was literally a wave of frogs escaping to freedom from that shed and of course to the day he died Bro would chuckle about it, was dead proud of himself he was ha ha.
Suffice to say that right up until my Brother moved out of the family home he was forever losing bloody keys and yes, the shed door one too. It got so bad that eventually if he asked to get something out of the shed, one of us would unlock the door and then relock it when he was done and that it didn’t matter how much he moaned and complained when he was told he would not be getting his hands on the key, we would only mention the word Frogs and he would shrug his shoulders and say fair enough with a smile and a chuckle.
There are many more tales to tell but for now I shall leave you with that one and a little bit later I will come back and share some more lost keys/dropped phone tales but for now I will move on.
