12 August 2016

Pulling tricks on mummy


By Min Atek

Recently, I was listening to a preacher speak about his times growing up back then when parents were generally very strict; where mom’s word was law and children only interacted with their fathers twice in a term, beginning and end of term. Back then things like television were sacred, for most homes it was a black and white telly and the more endowed homes had video decks.


In those days it was common not to watch television save on weekends or in the evenings as daddy watched the evening news. So this man of God was speaking about how once in a while they would sneak and watch television and on hearing their father return home the children would literally scatter in the house having quickly switched off the television. Soon daddy started to be suspicious and he did the magic test…touch the television set. It didn’t matter how fast one run…a television that has just been watched reports itself. It’s normally warm at the very least but hot in some instances.


Now you could try and be wise and wipe the TV with a wet cold cloth but that rarely entirely removed the evidence. For many back then…such evidence led to quick passing of judgement and the sentencing of the concerned parties. Sometimes it was one group of children watching and.not the entire lot. The entire crowd was normally punished because the ones who seldom watched were blamed for not having spoken forth.


I smiled deeply at this interesting tale not because I had been punished before but because this is one trick my children have played on me. The standard is we don’t watch television during the school week terms because there’s no time for it but also because I firmly believe television is a huge waste of time.


With our kind of work load, heavy traffic and the need for the children to rest early, who has time for television? I believe there’s more productive things to occupy peoples time and aim to sleep early. Every so often the children have pulled this very move on hearing mommy come back home and dashing off to sleep many a times with dirty feet because one of the diseases out of watching too much telly is to forget to take ones evening bath.
There’s times I have walked to the room, pulled someone’s covers and instructed the culprit to go take a bath…very cold water of course.


Many times I tell the children that most of their tricks are so old I probably pulled off more intelligent moves when I was their age.


Being who they are…they continue to try the age old tricks. Sometimes i quietly smile and let them get away with it. Of course he is no fool that plays fool every so often.


-mirembeabola@gmail.com











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