The Curse of the Mummies and an Unexpected Encounter
Another lovely day in Hackney and in the afternoon I decided to walk over to my regular lunchtime haunt, a family-run business down the road that serves delicious fresh rolls and sandwiches. I sat inside watching the little dramas out on the street. As my lunch arrived at the table a Hipster girl entered and strode up to the counter.
"Gimme a cuppa coffee to take with me", she ordered. The young proprietor set about making it for her. All the while she hopped from one foot to the other, flicking her greasy ponytail back and forth around her small, round head, her clunky boots resounding against the wooden floorboards. The proprietor handed her the coffee. She took it without thanking him and then barked, "And give me a chicken begat". He looked non-plussed, as was I. She continued, "Begat! Begat!... Chicken begat!" It took me a moment to realise that she meant 'baguette'.
I continued eating my delicious lunch and sipping my strong tea and watched as she continued her now quite irritating choreography: the clomp of one boot, and then the other; the whip of the ponytail. She stared straight ahead while the proprietor's sister made up her order behind the counter. When it was ready the proprietor wrapped it and handed it to the hopping Hipster. She took it, paid for it and left the shop without a word of thanks. Rude cow, I thought.
My lunch now finished, I took a stroll around the lovely Victoria Park. It was packed to the gills with mothers and prams. And joggers. And more mothers and prams and toddlers. And bicycles. And more mothers with prams. In fact it very soon became quite oppressively maternal. I looked up the broad walkway of the park as I exited and saw literally hundreds of mothers with toddlers and/or prams; and hardly a man in sight. I thought: There is certainly no shortage of sperm and ova in this burrough, it seems; they must be swimming in it. The maternal theme continued as I made my way home around the huge roundabout. Here were scores of pushchairs and prams being pushed by mothers meandering in all directions, in and out and in front of the shops, seemingly randomly, heedless of the usual understanding of pedestrian right-of-way. Observe, now, their serried ranks: see them wandering at all angles and all directions across the pavement; watch them come to a complete sudden stop in front of people walking behind them so they can speak to a friend meandering aimlessly towards them.
Over the years it has become clear to me that there very often an unspoken sense of moral and social superiority that attends gatherings of young women with their babies and toddlers. It is as if they feel they have been somehow elevated to exalted status, merely by dint of giving birth, and that this is some sort of marvellous vocation that has suddenly been bestowed upon them. How wearying it is to hear that constant but ultimately meaningless preamble, "As a mother, I feel such-and-such", or "As a Mum, I think we should be able to... ", or the emotionally blackmailing, "As a single mother, I think ....". This overarching sense of entitlement is also extended out into the public spaces in which they trundle with their baby wagons and buggies. Hear them now, expecting everyone to willingly enter into their personal spirals of chaos as they yell at their Freyas, their Oscars, their Poppys and their Dylans, who are even now heedlessly running ahead into the oncoming pedestrians.
And then, there are the dogs. For park strolling, or Saturday pavement mooching, everyone, whether elderly, middle-aged or young, must have at least one to effect maximum inconvenience. They must all be given full-reign, on long leashes to complete the confusion. Some of the mothers have gone the whole hog: they push a baby-buggy, drag a toddler by the arm and pull a dog on a long leash. In such a situation a straight line is impossible to walk. Each journey along the street becomes labyrinthine, and is lengthened eight-fold, as the hapless pedestrian is forced to curl and weave and double-back to avoid collision within this heterosexual Laocoon, which its progenitors never for an instant question, because they don't ever have to.
As soon as I was able to extricate myself from the leads, leashes, pram wheels, puppies, mutts and Osh Kosh B'Gosh, I hastened down a quiet street. This was a lovely row of Victorian terraces facing the leafy green park. Because of the warm weather, most of the houses had their top windows open to catch the breeze. From one of these bedroom windows now came the prolonged, throaty groans of a woman having what was obviously a powerful and most agreeable orgasm. A man walking beneath the window turned to his friend and said, "She's off again!" They both laughed.
As I arrived home and stepped through the front door. There was a ruckus going on somewhere in a street close by. A distraught male voice, clearly intoxicated, was screaming in full agony at someone inside a house.
"Julie! ... Julie! ... Julie! ... Julie! ... Take me back! I'm sorry, luv! ... I'm sorry! Believe me! ... Pleeeease!" I shut the door.
As I sat at the desk I found that there was a chat-message on my computer from a young man who apparently lived very nearby requesting a 'home visit' from me. Bizarrely, it transpired that he was also from Melbourne and had a couple of years ago finished his studies, in some unspecified subject, at the university I had also taught at for eleven years. Eighteen-minutes later, as we became much better acquainted on what passed as his couch, I wondered at the strange, random and totally meaningless coincidences that life throws our way from time to time. It is indeed a wonderful and mysterious universe in which we plummet.
"Gimme a cuppa coffee to take with me", she ordered. The young proprietor set about making it for her. All the while she hopped from one foot to the other, flicking her greasy ponytail back and forth around her small, round head, her clunky boots resounding against the wooden floorboards. The proprietor handed her the coffee. She took it without thanking him and then barked, "And give me a chicken begat". He looked non-plussed, as was I. She continued, "Begat! Begat!... Chicken begat!" It took me a moment to realise that she meant 'baguette'.
I continued eating my delicious lunch and sipping my strong tea and watched as she continued her now quite irritating choreography: the clomp of one boot, and then the other; the whip of the ponytail. She stared straight ahead while the proprietor's sister made up her order behind the counter. When it was ready the proprietor wrapped it and handed it to the hopping Hipster. She took it, paid for it and left the shop without a word of thanks. Rude cow, I thought.
My lunch now finished, I took a stroll around the lovely Victoria Park. It was packed to the gills with mothers and prams. And joggers. And more mothers and prams and toddlers. And bicycles. And more mothers with prams. In fact it very soon became quite oppressively maternal. I looked up the broad walkway of the park as I exited and saw literally hundreds of mothers with toddlers and/or prams; and hardly a man in sight. I thought: There is certainly no shortage of sperm and ova in this burrough, it seems; they must be swimming in it. The maternal theme continued as I made my way home around the huge roundabout. Here were scores of pushchairs and prams being pushed by mothers meandering in all directions, in and out and in front of the shops, seemingly randomly, heedless of the usual understanding of pedestrian right-of-way. Observe, now, their serried ranks: see them wandering at all angles and all directions across the pavement; watch them come to a complete sudden stop in front of people walking behind them so they can speak to a friend meandering aimlessly towards them.
Over the years it has become clear to me that there very often an unspoken sense of moral and social superiority that attends gatherings of young women with their babies and toddlers. It is as if they feel they have been somehow elevated to exalted status, merely by dint of giving birth, and that this is some sort of marvellous vocation that has suddenly been bestowed upon them. How wearying it is to hear that constant but ultimately meaningless preamble, "As a mother, I feel such-and-such", or "As a Mum, I think we should be able to... ", or the emotionally blackmailing, "As a single mother, I think ....". This overarching sense of entitlement is also extended out into the public spaces in which they trundle with their baby wagons and buggies. Hear them now, expecting everyone to willingly enter into their personal spirals of chaos as they yell at their Freyas, their Oscars, their Poppys and their Dylans, who are even now heedlessly running ahead into the oncoming pedestrians.
And then, there are the dogs. For park strolling, or Saturday pavement mooching, everyone, whether elderly, middle-aged or young, must have at least one to effect maximum inconvenience. They must all be given full-reign, on long leashes to complete the confusion. Some of the mothers have gone the whole hog: they push a baby-buggy, drag a toddler by the arm and pull a dog on a long leash. In such a situation a straight line is impossible to walk. Each journey along the street becomes labyrinthine, and is lengthened eight-fold, as the hapless pedestrian is forced to curl and weave and double-back to avoid collision within this heterosexual Laocoon, which its progenitors never for an instant question, because they don't ever have to.
As soon as I was able to extricate myself from the leads, leashes, pram wheels, puppies, mutts and Osh Kosh B'Gosh, I hastened down a quiet street. This was a lovely row of Victorian terraces facing the leafy green park. Because of the warm weather, most of the houses had their top windows open to catch the breeze. From one of these bedroom windows now came the prolonged, throaty groans of a woman having what was obviously a powerful and most agreeable orgasm. A man walking beneath the window turned to his friend and said, "She's off again!" They both laughed.
As I arrived home and stepped through the front door. There was a ruckus going on somewhere in a street close by. A distraught male voice, clearly intoxicated, was screaming in full agony at someone inside a house.
"Julie! ... Julie! ... Julie! ... Julie! ... Take me back! I'm sorry, luv! ... I'm sorry! Believe me! ... Pleeeease!" I shut the door.
As I sat at the desk I found that there was a chat-message on my computer from a young man who apparently lived very nearby requesting a 'home visit' from me. Bizarrely, it transpired that he was also from Melbourne and had a couple of years ago finished his studies, in some unspecified subject, at the university I had also taught at for eleven years. Eighteen-minutes later, as we became much better acquainted on what passed as his couch, I wondered at the strange, random and totally meaningless coincidences that life throws our way from time to time. It is indeed a wonderful and mysterious universe in which we plummet.
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