Blue shoes and magenta hair dye

• By Alison
• 19 September, 2009
• 8 Comments

Yesterday I did one of those things that betray the jumbled mess that is my mind, despite all outward appearances. Having dried and dressed two children after their swimming lessons, rolled up the towels and co-ordinated the wet stuff into the bag, I then walked out of the sports centre, across the junction and down the road with my two children, while still wearing the plastic blue overshoes from the poolside.
Our sports centre has a no shoes rule in the changing rooms. You need to either discard your shoes or cover them in blue shower caps. The look is comic at best. Trainers work ok under them, but flip flops or high heels look downright ridiculous, especially when the wearer tucks the elastic under their foot, between it and the shoe. In summer I just slip my shoes off, but in autumn or winter you just don’t feel inclined to do that.
The idea is that they keep the floor of the swimming area clean, which on the surface is a great idea. But “surface” is a loaded word. The powers that be hired a company to clean and seal the tiles in the changing rooms and poolside to provide an improved grip surface and prevent slips and spills. The only problem was that the company forgot to do the cleaning part before they did the sealing part. So the tiles look digusting. And six months later – they are more slippery than they were before.
The other problem with the blue overshoe thing is that when you throw them in the “overshoe bin” after use, the staff come along, pull them out of that, and then stuff them back into the overshoe dispensers. This means that when you get a new overshoe from the dispenser, there is a good chance that not only was it worn before, but is also now inside out. So whatever dirt was safely caught inside is now free for you to spread joyfully around the pool.
I was once chased around the changing area by an irate cleaner who was following my dirty footprints. Footprints that started from the wet viewing area and led into the cubicle that I was changing my daughters in. If the wet viewing area had been clean to start with, I wouldn’t have stepped in muck and much less spread it around. He failed to see my point, but since I couldn’t understand a word he was saying between mop brandishing we were fairly equal.
So, here I am sauntering down the street with bright blue shower caps around my feet. Fortunately for me, someone I was walking with noticed them before we reached my own street, which saved me thus from the even deeper humiliation of not just public, but local embarrassment. My children on the other hand – are to young to be embarrassed by me yet. We all had a good laugh as I peeled them off.
There will come a time I know, when all that changes. By high school at least, my every action will bring acute embarrassment to my offspring. It won’t matter whether I am actually quite “hip” and “with it”, my basic existence will be enough to induce toe curling, eye rolling cringing from both of them.
I kind of look forward to that period of our familial relationship. I plan to let the inner madness leak out a bit. If me driving them to school is embarrassing enough, wait until they see me doing it in an old bus I’ve bought on ebay and plan to convert into mobile lounge that I can park outside their school. I’ll be sure to talk to more cats, and have longer conversations with each moggy, and revisit the magenta hair dye with enthusiasm. I’ll introduce skipping as an excellent alternative to driving the old bus, then invite all their friends back home for carrot and snail muffins.
If none of that works, I’ll fall back on my own mother’s old habit, and send them to school with celery and vegemite sandwiches. And I’ll keep saying “hip” and “with it” until they are about 21 and start to regard me more with pity than embarrassement. Once we reach that stage I’ll happily put away my crimson kilt and red feather boa, stop wearing bunny slippers as outdoor attire and give away my tam-o-shanter collection to some deserving old men on the nearest park bench.
And I’ll wink at my children as they catch on to my duplicity. Then run.