A Troglodyte lives upstairs

I awaken late in the afternoon to the sounds of bath time. I can tell that it’s bath time because of the screaming and sounds of braking foot flesh outside the door.
“Noo eeee, I don do bahves, remember! I am dah melting one!” he pleads. He has come to a halt unexpectedly. He has unexpectedly bumped into his brother, who is a heap on the hard wood floor, not because he is protesting bath time, just because he happened to be there at the time. The sister comes up the stairs in a nonchalant fashion, commenting on proceedings at hand. “Well I sure ain’t gonna have a bath with them, no way, I’ll have mine after.” Spouse attempts turn taking and efficiency at the same time, a tall order at the best of times.


“It’s too difficult tonight, you’re all going to have to go in together and then it will be done!” Junior goes into automatic screaming protest together with flailing arms and legs, just case anyone isn’t already getting the message loud and clear. His legs pummel his brother who lumbers to one side a bit and exhales wearily before asking, “Why we are having dah bahf?”

“Because it’s Sunday and you always have a full scrub on Sunday ready for school tomorrow.”
“We are dirty?”
“May be yes, maybe no, it’s just a safety feature.”
“Dirty people have bahf on Sunday?”
“Definitely.”
“Mummy is having dah bahf?”
“Er, no. She’s too ill to barf, er, I mean bathe, er, I mean have a bath right now.” I pull myself up on my pillows to pay closer attention.
“You don have to have dah bahf if you are dah golden?”
“She’s not really golden is she Dad, more like yellow.”
“Yellow? Golden?” Spouse pauses whilst trying to remove three sets of clothes from three small people who are not co-operating and are semi clad on the top landing in full view of the neighbourhood for approximately half a mile on an early Sunday evening.
“Remember, you said this morning?”
“What did I say this morning?” he queries. I sit up taller and lean toward to the closed door.
“You said that mum looked like she’s been in a train crash because of the surgery. She’d change from mustard yellow, to blue, to purple to black and soon she’d be back to normal again.”
“Is that what I said?” Is that what he said?
“Yup. So the point is, she’s not dirty, the ‘golden’ won’t ‘wash off.’”
“Er. Den she will be dah different colours every day?”
“Right! Right Dad?”
“Er, yes, sort of.” I scoot down into the duvet cover as the door opens and they file past to use the really big bath together. As the water rages out of the faucets I here a little voice say, “I’m gonna tell my teacher dat my mom is a rainbow.”
I hear spouse fight with extraneous clothes, pyjamas, towels and small uncooperative bodies and mutter, “great, that will really confuse her.”
But spouse doesn’t
appreciate how clever those special education teachers are.
Actually, most of the time he does, he's just currently
to overloaded to remember that.
I snuggle down into my bed with my golden glow,
confident that all their teachers are excellent translators.