Lucky knickers

Sometimes being the mom in this boomerang house of ours is not all that bad…

The other day Emma – aka Igz – asked if I had any scarves that I do not use.

Ummm… nope. I replied very quickly.

Since the big kids came to live with us – nothing, I repeat, NOTHING is safe anymore. Things get borne off to various parts of the house never to be seen again.

Aaahhhh come on mom – you used to have all those little ones that you NEVER use.

Begrudgingly got up to go and look. Had a plastic bag in my cupboard that I vaguely remember stuffing things into when we moved – things that I no longer wore or did not fit.

We emptied The Bag onto the bed… knickers of all varieties and a couple of saggy old bras. One or two new ones as well – of the boobtube variety that had sliced my body unattractively in half. I’d buried them in disgust rather than return them. Those were the days when my thyroid was busy attacking me and I had no idea – was just packing on weight and could not understand it.

We sifted through the stuff… not a single scarf.

She eyed the bras, What are you going to do with those?

I’d gone from too fat to too thin – so they were not likely to fit me now anyway…

What are you going to do with them?  I enquired.

She’d use bits of them for other things… the underwire, the fastners and stuff. I tossed them onto the Em pile.

We ruffled through the heap and found some undies – never worns that I passed on to my skinny daughter, and some others that I had thought would never fit me again found their way back into my top drawer.

I spotted and pounced on my lucky knickers… green lacy ones that I had loved so much they had holes in the crotch in a very unsexy way. They became unlucky when I was wearing them and my suitcase went missing on a visit to the USA, only to be found 5 days into my 10 day trip.

Hot trip tip people – never pack HIS and HERS suitcases – mix your stuff up!

Hadn’t worn those knickers for years – not since I got divorced back in 2003 but could never bear to ditch them completely, so they had languished in a corner of my top drawer and then been relegated to The Bag.

Give those to me, said Em, snatching them out of my hand and stuffing them into her pocket.

Noooo… I started to howl – then realized I was being pathetic – she’d use the lace for some arty project.  We shoveled the rest of the stuff  into The Bag and stashed it back in the cupboard.

Early next morning, Chris and I were on our way to fetch my older daughter and her family from the Lanseria. They were coming from Cape Town and would be spending Easter with us, then going onto Sun City for a friend’s wedding.  I encountered Em in the passage.

I blinked… What are you doing up and out of your flat so early?

Here. She said – grabbing my hand and filling it with something slinky. It’s your lucky bracelet.

She’d made me the most gorgeous charm bracelet – turning bits of lucky knicker lace into beads.  This is the sort of thing my creative, quirky, tempremental, pain-in-the-ass Em does for a living.   So if anybody wants something creatively recycled – give her a shout.