Filthy Rich

I am not ear wigging, I am cooking. My daughter and her pal [translation = American friend] come in from the garage having chosen their snacks. [translation = in America it is commonplace to keep catering packs of excessive amounts of food in the garage] They nibble and play together in the family room. Spouse is out with the boys and the shoe campaign.
“Yur sooo lucky to have brothers and sisters to play with!” says the only child.
“Yeah.”
“You have soooo many toys!”
“Yeah, but they’re not really all mine. We have to share em.”
“Yur sooo lucky to have brothers and sisters to share with.”
“Yeah.”
“So you must be real rich, huh!” she says incredulously.
“Er, yes, um no, actually I don’t know?”

The conversation ends prematurely as the clank of the garage door gives us an early warning of the boys’ return. The noise of the engine is drowned out by the screaming from the car, even though the inner door is still closed. Pal turns to my daughter, “gee is he louder at home than at school?” Her eyes are wide, her head pivots towards the sound, an owl. She goes to the door to watch, my daughter follows. They see spouse trying to extract junior from the car, howling.
“Gee why is he cryin like that? Wuz he real, real bad or summat?”
“New shoes,” she says unhelpfully.

I hear the new shoes hit the ceiling in the garage. Junior now has a secondary problem. His feet are naked. Naked feet cannot touch the cement floor. Fortunately a few years ago I had some off-cuts of underlay [translation = carpet] left over. They create a safe passage from the car door to the kitchen door. [translation = a run way for the flight path] He bounces out of the car and his tippy toes propel him at high velocity to the interior of the house. The girls stand back, part the way, and watch the dust of his wake.

When her mother comes to collect the play date victim, most of the windows are open due to the heat. [translation = too mean to turn the air conditioning on yet] As they leave I cannot help but hear wafts of their conversation.
“D’you have a good time honey?”
“Sure but they’re so darned rich! D’you know they have carpet in their garage!”
“Really! In the garage?”


Pity it doesn’t work as sound proofing too.