Fat rolls and fond memories

500 Words: Endings

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/71886

I have been ruthless and the cull has gone well. The charity shop will be happy. Clothes that I have held on to for years, in the hope that I will lose weight and return to the single digit size I wore when I was just out of my teens, now fill the black, plastic garbage bags. I glide over the fact that most are out of fashion and cling to the hope that maybe someone else will be able to get some use from them.

Why do I continue to do this to myself? Hold on to clothes that I wore years and years ago, and which I have no hope in hell of ever fitting into again. Like the life coaches say, I’ve got to stop hanging on to the past and be honest with myself – I’m never going to be that young skinny minny ever again! That time in my life has ended and there’s no going back. I poke my head back into my wardrobe. I’ve left my favourite dress till last. There it hangs, faithfully waiting for me. Just looking at this dress makes me smile – it brings back so many memories.

Like a matador flourishing his cape, I grab the coat hanger and whip out this last item of clothing from my recently denuded wardrobe.
Now, I’m a budding young actress in a cheesy Doris Day movie and I hold my dress up against me and dance before my full-length mirror. Small moments of happiness flash through my mind as I remember the parties and dinners I wore this dress to. Memories of dancing for hours and sneaking home just before curfew come flooding back. The joy of laughter and fun times, old friends and new, growing up and dreams for the future form part of the fabric I now hold against me. I remember feeling carefree and confident and attractive – what I wouldn’t give to feel like that now! The black plastic bags are impatiently waiting for me, their slippery ebony mouths gaping open in anticipation of this last tasty morsel. As the stash inside them gently topples, the rubbing plastic swishes and whispers ‘Come on, throw it in, then you’re done, job finished.’ I stop.
I hold my dress close.
This dress is staying with me.
I’m turning my back on this ending and hanging on to my memories.

My favourite dress and I take up our dance positions and resume our waltz around the room.
I throw my head back and laugh!

My mother, the overtaker

500 words: Car Stories

https://open.abc.net.au/explore/66395

My mother came to driving later in life. I was 12 when she got her licence and I can still remember the day she passed the test and excitedly showed the family her P-plates.
When Mum became a driver, Dad (a motor mechanic by trade) bought a 1962 XP Ford Falcon that needed a bit of work. He fixed it and sprayed it a bright orangey baby poo colour – it was the 70s after all.

One long weekend, we took the Ford on holidays with us to the Central Coast. Our 21 year old cousin was visiting from overseas. He was keen to go to the beach so mum offered to drive my cousin, my younger brother and sister and myself.

It was a stinking hot day. The one-lane road leading to the beach was bumper-to-bumper. Kids were hanging out windows, whilst frazzled looking mum and dad drivers resisted the urge to clamp their hands on their car horns and keep them there.

Mum stayed in the line of traffic with all the other cars until she hit upon a brilliant idea.

No one was using the verge on the left, so she diligently put on her left blinker and pulled out onto it. She then started to make her way, slowly forward, from the end of the queue, creeping past each car waiting in the line.

We had gotten past quite a few cars. With our windows wound down and the relief of finally moving, things were going pretty well for us. That is until we heard a loud, booming voice saying “Don’t let that woman in the orange car in! Don’t let the orange car in!”

Someone in the line of cars we were overtaking was using his CB radio as a public address system and was urging the other drivers in the queue not to let us back into the line of traffic.

Mum, of course, was totally oblivious to what was going on.

I slunk down in my seat. I cringed with shame and embarrassment.

“Mum!” I hissed, “He’s talking about us!”

“What? What about us?” asked Mum, innocently. She really had no idea.

“He’s telling everybody not to let us in!” I spat.

Maybe they hadn’t covered this in the driving lessons she’d taken, I thought.

Mum kept driving slowly, trying to get back into the line of traffic. But the cars had heeded “The Voice” and had moved closer together, blocking us from the queue.

Eventually, a fellow driver took pity on us and let us in. We did eventually get to the beach.

Even though this incident seems very funny now, many decades later, I still remember it as my first memory of public humiliation. I’m happy to say my mother wasn’t traumatised by the experience, but I definitely was!