This weekend, kit decided to help me clean the bathroom. That most unusual occurrence came about due to a change in the wattage of the light-bulbs . Allow me to explain.
Yesterday morning, while I was out, several of the light-bulbs in the bathroom blew. Kit and his Dad went to some trouble to replace them. In Perth, where we live, there is a bizarre phenomenon that everywhere indoors is very poorly lit (except hair dressers or changing rooms in clothes shops, or any other place where harsh lighting is bound to make you look a fright if you are (a) over forty (b) not suffering from an eating disorder or (c) pretty much anyone at all; let’s face it nobody looks good in that kind of light).
I believe the old bulbs were a wattage of about negative 10. I actually keep a torch in the bathroom for those days when I don’t mind seeing what I really look like in the mirror (about twice a year). Our only spare bulbs were about three times as strong as the old ones. So, when I unsuspectingly went to the bathroom and turned on the light, I was silently gobsmacked for a beat, and then exclaimed “[that swear word, which is often prefaced by various animals such as bulls or horses]!”
I had been met by a scene of the utmost filthiness. I used to be an archaeologist, and I have excavated cesspits cleaner than that bathroom!
Kit came running and repeated my exclamation, adding, “In the wild meerkats have communal latrine areas, but if one of ours was that bad, we would just move out and go live somewhere else.”
Given that that was not an immediate option for us, we set about cleaning the bathroom. Kit was keen to help, but given his size, I wasn’t sure there was much he could do. Suffice it to say, everyone should have a cheerleader when they are cleaning the bathroom. He was also a dab hand at cleaning out the tooth mug.
But, the thing he was most proud of was reading me the instructions on the bottles. There is a little understood affliction that affects most people over the age of forty. It is that your arms start to shrink. This change becomes apparent when you go to read something with fine print, and find that you are no longer able to hold it far enough away from your face to actually make out the words. At my age I know the instructions for cleaning products off by heart, but Kit was helping so earnestly, that it would have been mean to tell him that.
Apparently it’s not just the bathroom that looks better. This evening, after I had got dressed to go out, Kit said, “Your makeup looks nice, Mum. You no longer look like a circus clown, or an aging transvestite. And I see you managed to pluck all your chin hairs.”