The Bag Lady

Well, it turns out I am the bag lady. To wit: I am frumpy, hair is always a mess, my invariable black pants have foot prints on them from the car ride, my feet are in nasty shape (and the nails have never heard of paint), and just today:
1. Handbag, black, stuffed with: ludwig's pan card. my wallet. mobile. checks from here and there. lists. bills. rubber bands. unknown items.
2. Backpack. Resurrected old Black Jansport belonging to husband. Stuffed with: two notebooks. calculator. current text books. some papers.
3. Marathon Bag. Also Black but with bright blue threads. Shoes. Socks. Towel. Tee. Shorts. For potential evening run in the gymkhana grounds.
4. Colourful Dark Blue bag with beautiful embroidery. Stuffed with my lunch dabbas. Grapes for evening. Water bottle (refilled half liter Bisleri).
5. Grey semi-back pack that I got in my Romania Conference. Stuffed with monster's lunch, water bottle (some funny Mickey Mouse types), change of dress, a snack box. This is her creche bag.
6. Blue Power Puff Girls Back Pack. Bright blue. Like ooh where are my sunglasses now blue. With decal type stuff of the annoying creatures. This is the monster's school bag.
7. Red and yellow hanging water bottle with butterflies on it. This is the monster's school water bottle.

(The last two items are of course forcefully thrust on the girl. Five bags is plenty for me. One bag for each foot of my height).

**

Last night at the park, I was trying my hardest to read Smoke and Mirrors by Pallavi Aiyar, squinting in the white tube light. It was 6:45 when we hauled ourselves down there. It was real noisy. First was a little cute girl with some device for making bubbles. Like a gun with a big purple light in front that made about a hundred bubbles a minute. Kids (am ashamed to say including mine), would giggle and run after the bubbles trying to burst them. Then the boys. Big boys. Scary looking thugs. They insist on hanging out on the slides and swings which are clearly for younger children (at least I think so. They are easily as big as I am though they are probably only 8-10 years of age). They were up to some game as usual.

One second I am reading about Shaolin monks and Kung-Fu and the next thing I know someone is screaming Bloody Fucker. I was a bit UHH. I mean 10 years of age is surely too young for Bloody Fucker but too old for the small pink slide? I marked my page and was going to get up and Have A Talk With The Boys About This. I had slimily seen that at least my little baby girl was far away chasing bubbles in a girly manner and could not have heard them clearly. But There Are Other Little Girls. I was all chagrin-filled.

But then just as suddenly I gave up. Forget it. Its all good. I mean who am I to comment on them? I generally don't say Bloody Fucker thats true. But thats only because I prefer Fucking Ass over other forms of swearing. And I cannot really be that Aunty types who goes up and berates young people for such things. If they were littering, or hurting dogs, or bullying a little kid, I would go up to them (and have done it, at least a few times) and try to convince them to stop. If they burst crackers too close to me they would get a bit of a scolding from me (and they have). Well, thats good enough for the bag lady.

The park is not of course what its made out to be. And I really hated that soap bubble making gun more than the thug looking boys swearing at each other...