I laughed aloud (for you younger readers, that’s how people said “LOL” back in the bad old days) at this anecdote from Abel and Haron’s blissful domesticity:
I’m out in the kitchen making dinner. Abel is on the phone to his mother in the next room, and I can hear him through the door:
“I’d better go, Mum; Haron’s cooking, I need to give her a hand.”
I wonder briefly why he thinks I need help stirring curry that’s come out of a jar; surely I’m not that inept.
Everything is explained when he strides into the room, yanks down my slightly-too-large tracksuit bottoms along with my knickers, and gives me several firm, crisp smacks. I hold on to the stirring spoon to keep myself from ending up face-first in the bubbling curry.
“Is that your understanding of giving me a hand?” I ask, pulling my pants back up.
“Yeah. What, did you think I was going to help you?”
In our house, it’s a matter of having too many robust wooden spoons hanging about in the kitchen (where they don’t attract undue attention the way they would hanging about in the living room). I’ll wander in there when Bethie is cooking, and say “You need any help?”
She’ll look up at me from whatever task she has well in hand, and gaze at me with that facial expression that says in a friendly sort of way “Have you lost your freaking mind?”
“No, dear, I think I’ve got it. Anyway, what would you do?”
At which point I usually grab a handy spoon and smack away at a handy bottom. I get bonus points if it’s a spoon she’s using for food, because apparently butt oil can transmute itself right through two layers of clean cotton.
“Hey, what are you doing, I’m cooking here!”
“And I’m supervising.”
