In the Asylum

They have this game that they play, Hambones and Waltzie.  Well, it’s not so much a game as some kind of performance they get onto.  This happens on any given day, either in company or alone, and sometimes they can be way down the other end of the house, completely on their own, and the game they are playing – whatever it is today, “Hey, pretend I am a man at the door and you don’t know I’m there…” – starts getting louder and louder, and the theatrical, shouting demands of each character become more and more outrageous, fuelled by the maniacal laughter of the other. 

…and on it goes, louder and louder, “shout shout!”, “cackle cackle!” … louder … louder…

I assume, judging by the escalating volume, that they’re performing for me … but I am miles away, so the decibels climb and the outrageous drama continues … louder … shout … louder … cackle … until eventually I crack and scream (really loudly, so as to be heard, with my sudden anger sparking out of my eyes and forehead like some villain from a 1960s comic book) for them to keep it down “..or it’ll be timeout for both of you!”.  I then return to my dishes/laundry/mopping, gutted with shame at having put a stop to something which I suddenly recognise to be innocent loveliness.

This game, or play-pattern is a constant in our house, and while I can mostly tolerate it in the home, I do get a bit [more] on edge when it happens in public.  It was on at the fruit shop the other day while I was racing around to get it all done before they completely lost it.  I’d been setting a gruelling pace that morning to get all the jobs done before we collapsed in front of the teev for the afternoon, but I wanted to do this last stop for the weekly supplies.

Hambones’d helped with the apples and pears, and Waltzie’d spent a good seven minutes looking for the broccoli before returning to the trolley with a stem of rhubarb in hand.  I’d flipped around chasing-up the loose ends, and at some stage their microchips’d been tripped again and they were back in the zone.  As we approached the checkout, their game (something about angry, flying bananas) was getting louder and crazier.

As my shoulders slumped in polite, contrite response to the regular barrage of abuse from the elderly checkout ‘hen’ for failing (yet again - that’s every week for the past eight years!) to put all my items in plastic bags, I could feel my knuckles growing whiter and whiter against the trolley in seething proportion to the crescendo of shouts and cackles that was escalating behind me. 

And just a split second before my combined embarrassment and intolerance tripped over to Def Con 1 and I spun around to give them both barrels, the matronly attendant – smiling at me for the first time in near a decade -  nodded to them and said, “They look like they get on well”, to which I looked over at Hambones and Waltzie embracing each other and squawking and grinning like a couple of loons.

I was reminded of how well they really do get on, Hambones and Waltzie, and of how very lucky I am to have them.