Life With Kermie: YOU…NEVER… LISTEN!

Life With Kermie

15 Oct

How many of you have been told that? If I was a betting man I’d say most of you. I’d also lay down good money that 99.9% of you are men – who are on the receiving end of that statement.

Now to be fair to Rita, she never says it quite like that. She starts with a ‘you never listen’, progressing to ‘You Never Listen’, topping out with a ‘YOU never listen’. Occasionally she may throw an exclamation mark on the end – as she did recently.

I was sitting at the desk, engrossed in writing another engaging article for Truckin With Kermie. Rita, was in the kitchen doing some baking, all of 10 foot away from my desk.

As I typed away I could smell the delicious aromas of her Triple Choc Brownies wafting around the doorway. Knowing not to interrupt her whilst baking and also knowing that I don’t get to taste until she says so, I kept typing away with the thought of the delicious morning tea to come.

Apparently – and I can say apparently because it’s only her word against mine – she, at some stage called out ‘fire’. This was apparently followed with a louder ‘Fire’ and, then apparently with a third ‘FIRE!’

I reckon that her ‘FIRE!’ was the first, but there you go. Anyhow, by the time I smelled it and put my head around the doorway, she had extinguished it. It was only the baking paper. Why do they call it Baking paper if it can’t handle baking?

That episode got me a ‘YOU never listen!’ It also delayed that morning tea I was so looking forward to, not due to any damage – because apart from the baking paper there wasn’t any - but because I wasn’t in the good books.

Or perhaps she called me for morning tea three times and I missed the first two?

That little event takes me back to our Nick’s 11th birthday. He had a bunch of mates around, as you do, and they’re all sitting outside tucking into the birthday food. The mozzies were also having a fine old time tucking into them so I decided to fill half a dozen bamboo torches with citronella and tied them to the wooden fence around the area where they were ensconced.

**The kids survived. The fence, not so much**

My dear old mum wandered across from next door, saw what I’d done and suggested that I shouldn’t light them just yet. “She’ll be right mum,” says I as I struck a match. The citronella in the torches lit beautifully as did the torches themselves where I’d spilt the stuff, soon followed by the fence. Nick and his mates thought it was a hoot and the best birthday they’d ever attended. Indeed they talk about it 12 years on. Mum? Did she say, “YOU NEVER LISTEN.”? No. She just shook her head and walked away.

I digress. We’ve had an attack of Cape Weed this year. I mean this stuff has just gone nuts! They tell me it can lay dormant for years before breaking out, and it has done so with a vengeance. I got down on my hands and knees and two hours later I’d barely made a dent in it. Then Rita saw a Facebook post from a friend, Bette Phillips who talked about the Grampa Weeder bought from Bunnings for $80. I’ve not made it to Gramps status yet, thanks to my three boys not holding up their end of the bargain, but the bod is certainly Gramps age so off to Bunnings to get one – except they’d sold out.

So I returned home with 5 litres of Weed and Feed. You know, the one you attach the hose to. Rita man’s (or woman’s) the tap and I tell her to let it rip. “Don’t go near the garden beds.”

“No worries,” says me.

…. “You’re poisoning the Roses! Get away from the Avocado Tree! You’re going to kill the Jacaranda! Watch out for the Geraniums! God no – not the succulents!”

That earned me a, “YOU NEVER LISTEN” complete with !!

Most of the roses survived and the other stuff too. What didn’t survive was half of our beautiful green grass, which obviously wasn’t – grass that is. The other great survivor was that bloody Cape Weed which positively thrived.

**I killed the grass but not the Cape Weed**

Back to Bunnings but still no Grampa Weeder, and then I remembered a funny implement I’d found in the shed when we bought this place. With no idea what it was I put it away somewhere. Could it be? I thought.

Gee I’m good at putting things away where I can’t find ‘em.

After a week or so I stumbled across it and, yay, it is a weeder. It rips those bloody Cape Weeds out like there’s no tomorrow and it allows you to stand while you’re doing it. God bless old Ken who built this place and left it behind for future generations.

Now I’m working my way through those blasted Cape Weeds, leaving a bit of a moonscape behind me as I go – but a few bags of topsoil will fix that. And maybe a bag or three of grass seed that likes the ‘feed’ bit of Weed & Feed.

And she’s wrong you know, my Rita. I do listen. I hear the sound of a GM V671 coming from afar. I hear the Jake Brakes as trucks hit the 60kph zone on the Echuca Road. It’s just that some things of lesser importance take longer to go from the ears to the brain. You know what I mean guys, right?