Mangoes, Mayhem and the F word! | Life Love and Hiccups: Mangoes, Mayhem and the F word!
Life Love and HiccupsLife Love and HiccupsLife Love and HiccupsLife Love and Hiccups

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Mangoes, Mayhem and the F word!

Pin It

Do want to learn how to make a complete and utter fool of yourself in your local grocery store?

Perhaps you would like to totally shock the pants off your little ones with your colourful language?

Want some tips on how to waste a tray full of mangoes whilst single-handidly causing probably the largest escalator stack in local history?

Well then welcome my friends, you have come to the right place.

Yup, I think you should lock me up and throw away the key, because in one brief minute I managed to undo years of hard work of parenting my children to be polite respectable members of society, and to top it all off, I now have to change shopping centres because I am too mortified to ever go back to my usual grocery store of choice.

It was meant to be just your normal weekly grocery shop and it turned into something out of a bad documentary on how NOT to behave as a parent.

We were on the escalator on our way down to the car park, with my shopping trolley full, 2 of my kids in tow and proudly perched on the top of my trolley was a tray full of succulent ripe sweet smelling mangoes.

In hindsight, it seemed to happen in slow motion and if I close my eyes I can picture the scene of carnage like it just happened minutes ago. I am not surprised really as it is burned into my memory forever.

The escalator shuddered and the trolley lurched forward. In a split second the tray of mangoes slipped forward and teetered on the edge of the trolley.

I threw myself over the handle bar of the trolley to grab at the box and instead of grabbing it, I missed and launched the tray of delicacies into the air and then rolling down the escalator.

I didn't think, I didn't notice the throngs of people around me and I certainly didn't consider my 2 boys standing next to me wide eyed watching the spectacle unfold.

"OH F##K! F##K F##K F##K!!!!!"

I was oblivious to the gasps as I was trying to stop my trolley from running over the mangoes and turning them into a smashed up slop of orange goop.

In a miscalculated moment I didn't even stop to think when I left my trolley at the bottom of the escalator and grabbed at my precious mangoes rolling away, that all the other people and their trolleys would all crash into each other at the bottom of the escalator.

People were screaming at me to move my trolley, some were crying in pain as their toes were run over by steel wheels, and others ... well the others were glaring at me with sheer disgust at the language at that had just come out of my mouth.

I stood there with tears of shame in my eyes clutching my mangled mangoes.

A kind man handed me one he had salvaged and I gratefully accepted the gesture.

"I'm sorry" was all I could mutter to the crowd.

A little voice woke me from my stupor.

"Mum, Mum!"

I took a big breath and mustered up the courage to face my little boy.

"Mum" he said again

"Yes Sam" I croaked.

"You said the F word!"