Thursday, November 18, 2010

What do cows have to do with anything?

Tuesday and Wednesday seem to have come and gone rather rapidly...on Tuesday afternoon the boys had two friends over, and the Garden Fairy paid us a visit to plant tomatoes and potatoes. I must not forget to water them, under threat of death - the method was not described but I am sure it would be humane and creative. Yesterday I brought Caleb home from school with me at 12, as he was coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing some more. I stopped by a pharmacy on the way home for some cough medicine. This is a novelty for me - on the island the options were (a) let him get better on his own or (b) make a doctor's appointment and probably get prescribed antibiotics or simply nebulized. We had already been nebulising him. I had little confidence in OTC cough syrups but desperate times call for bottled meds. The curly-haired lady gave us Duro Tuss...keep that name in mind because what I am about to say next is very important: after one dose, Caleb's dry, irritating, insomnia-inducing cough had tamed into a slightly phlegmy occasional cough which did not last more than about 20 minutes. Voila! That's Duro Tuss, ladies and gentlemen. We also have him on a daily antihistamine dose until the pollen season passes. He was so much better today although I could still hear him at school occasionally, his cough indicating his whereabouts like a cowbell on a wandering bovine.
This morning at school I made the mistake of not switching my phone to silent mode. I have a noxious ringtone which is embarrassing everytime anyone phones, but too funny and hideous to hide away. Consequently, when the personnel agency phoned offering me a short-term temp contract (which I couldn't take for obvious reasons), my camera bag started screaming at the back of the class. Mrs Thompson jumped in her seat, I sprang up, Petru started giggling, and the class didn't know what to think. I silenced it as quickly as I could but not before Grant came out of his class to attend to what he thought was a drastically misbehaving child in the bathroom. Oh dear, oh dear...our whole class ended up in fits of laughter and it was some time before Mrs Thompson's face resumed its usual colour and the tears dried up!

I did issue the warning...

1 comment:

Genevieve said...

What is even funnier about this is that this "sound" (or chatter, burble, gurgle, chortle, sputter, warble...what do you call it?) comes from a person who is in many ways the picture of decorum! You make me laugh from thousands of miles away!