Hey, where's your Mum?

Do I look like I need my hand held?

Sometimes just going out for a lunchtime walk is a lesson in funny. I really am learning day by day to look at the funny side of life. Actually, there are a lot of amusing things that happen every day - I guess it just depends on your point of view.

Last week I headed out at lunchtime for my normal daily walk. I like getting out of the office at lunchtime. It really clears my head and gives me a second wind for the big push to knock off time. Anyway, the weather was pretty nasty. There was a good, strong head wind...and I'm a lightweight so I was almost being blown over. Literally.

I noticed a local resident walking along as well. She was distracted and so I passed her on the footpath. I got about five metres in front of her when I heard her call out,

"Hey! Little guy! Where's your Mum?!"

She then proceeded to come a little closer to me and held out her hand as though she was going to take mine and lead me back to a safe place.

I was terribly amused. I turned and looked at her and it was at that point the woman realised her mistake. She was wrong on two levels.

1. I am not a guy. Yes my hair may be uber short but short hair does not maketh the man and I am most definitely a woman.
2. I am old enough to walk the streets without my mother, thank you very much.

She apologised profusely, but seeing the amused look on my face caused her to see the funny side of her mistake too. Luckily she became distracted by someone else at that moment and went on her merry way. Shame, because the response I really wanted to give her was:

"Umm.....I'm not too sure where my Mum is at the moment. Somewhere on the Nullabor I think!"

This is not an isolated incident. I've had times where I've answered a knock at the front door and when I've answered it the salesperson has said, "Hello there! Is your Mum home?" to which I have replied, "Yes, I think she's home....but she doesn't actually live here." I've chosen to see the positive side of this. Maybe I look younger than I really am! At my age this is a BONUS! 

I think the best story I have ever heard about a short statured person being mistaken for a child is the story about my late father-in-law, George.

*Whilst shopping at a Newsagent for a packet of envelopes, my father-in-law George (also a person of short stature) was standing at the counter waiting to be served. Standing alongside of him was a mother with a very unruly child who was screaming for an item his mother wasn't prepared to buy for him. In her frustration, the mother reached down thinking she was grabbing her sons hand and dragged him out of the store. Unfortunately she had grabbed George's hand by mistake and started trying to run with him. 

Her anger turned to mortified embarrassment when she heard an adult voice exclaim, "Steady on! I've often tried to pick a woman up but this is the first time a woman has picked me up!"*

Luckily George had a sense of humour too!

*story used with permission*

Mum! Get a bandaid....and other Tall Tales

"Mum! Get a Band-aid, quick!  Richard's chopped his finger off!"

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This is from one of those childhood stories. You know the ones. They get bigger and funnier as the years go by and a few more brain cells get whittled off into oblivion. The above sentence is from a tale my brother tells us about two of his friends who were playing "Chicken" with the axe in the back yard. Apparently Richard (whoever he was) was holding his finger on a log and then whipping it away as his young mate brought the axe down. The last time it happened he didn't get his finger away quick enough and the mate went screaming through the backyard,

"Muuum! Get a Band-aid, quick! Richard's chopped his finger off!"

I can recall seeing the young Richard as a child and yes, he was missing a finger. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but the story is still fun in the telling year after year!

Then there's the story I remember my friend Katrina telling me. She told me that she and her family were going to travel around Australia and her parents were going to let her tie her horse to the back of the caravan and ride it whilst they drove. I was wildly excited and impressed with this and wished with everything I had that I could go with Katrina and ride on the back if a horse tied to a caravan. Riding horses was my most favourite thing in the world! 

Now, I don't even know if Katrina owned a horse. I never saw it. I don't even know if Katrina and her family travelled around Australia, but I do know that Katrina did leave the school that year and I contented myself with "wild erratic fancies" of Katrina S riding around the country on her horse tied to the back if the family caravan, whoopin' and hollerin' like the Wild Colonial Boy...or girl in this instance!

Childhood memories are interesting things. They are bigger and brighter and scarier than the reality of what actually was. Sometimes I long to see a couple of the things that terrified me as a child just so that I can put things into perspective. Sometimes I wish I could just time travel back to a particular day that holds a significant memory for me just so I can view it with the understanding of adult eyes because I know that what I remember as real is possibly simply laid down because of my childish understanding.

When I was very, very young my Dad and I were dumped by what I remember as the most enormous wave ever. I can still see it my mind; huge and dirty with churned up sand from the bottom of the ocean floor. It was a wave to rival the one that caused the end of the Andrea Gail in the movie, "The Perfect Storm."

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I know it wasn't, but the Tall Tale I tell is that it was because that's how my childish memory laid it down. This is the wave that haunts my dreams to this day.

My childhood memory has also laid down a memory of my Nanna chasing after our car that contained my two little brothers. The car was rolling down an incline towards, what my memory says, the edge of a cliff. My little brothers who were both under the age of five had been playing in the car and had taken off the handbrake. The car started rolling. The most terrifying thought for me at the time was "there are no grownups in the car and it is moving!" The memory of that day is still very vivid to me but coloured by childish understanding. Apparently they weren't headed for the edge of a cliff but there was an embankment there and trees would have broken their descent. Still, it's a tall tale in my mind.

I'm sure every family has their Tall Tales that get taller and taller as the years go by; legends that just keep getting more and more interesting with each telling and you find yourself wondering when exactly the truth started to become distorted. I have tales of house fires and people taking breaths in their coffins that were told to me by my great aunts. I have memories of tales told by an uncle who was notorious for bending the truth and sometimes even now I wonder about them and have to clarify them with my parents because for some reason they have stayed with me throughout all these years and it seems important to check on their validity. 

Sometimes I just love listening to Tall Tales because they are filled with the innocence and invincibility of youth - the sporting tales, the rescue tales, the close shaves. They're filled with all kinds of excitement and bravado and they're told by the people I love the most and with whom I share a common history. There are tales I know are not true at all and I have to fight to keep a straight face in order to maintain the dignity of the teller and I find myself wondering about why the tales are so grandiose. Will I be a teller of outrageous tales one day?

What about you? Do you have some Tall Tales in your family? Who is your biggest Tall Tale Teller?