An exhausting date with Beatrix Potter
Last weekend I offered to keep my two resident grandchildren happy on Saturday while their parents were busy moving to a new home. I suggested we first go and feed the ducks, a proposal of long standing that is always enthusiastically received. I have
long suspected that this is because a) feeding ducks involves popcorn, which you can eat yourself; b) popcorn has to be bought at the children-friendly supermarket where you can race your own shopping cart through the aisles, and c) if you're tired of rac
ing, a nice, elderly saleslady will give you a free sample of sweet or greasy yummy.
At City Park, the ducks' traditional feeding ground is close by the concession stand with the rides, an additional reason for loving our feathered friends. This time however, everything was closed down for the winter, so I escaped riding the Ferris whee
l, which , small as it may be, gives me vertigo. The ducks put on their usual starvation show, but two drakes didn't stick to the script. They got into a real fight and tried to rip each other's head off. It's hard to explain things like that to childr
en without raising serious doubts about the essential bonhomie of nature's little creatures.
After the ducks had been fed, we made our way toward the Children's Museum preview in the Sycamore Mall. Here we found ourselves wandering through Beatrix Potter land, surrounded by giant cabbages and carrots. Peter Rabbit was nowhere to be seen though
. It didn't seem that farmer McGregor's pathetic pro-vegetable signs would have deterred him, so I figured he was rabbit pie already, like his father before him. The children didn't even miss him; they were too busy uprooting an acrylic bed of polystyre
ne vegetables and carting them off to a little playhouse-cum-tea room.
I was told we were to have an English tea party here, complete with scones and cucumber sandwiches, according to the menu. As it turned out, all I got was two cabbages and an onion, but my granddaughter reminded me that I was on a diet anyway. She had
found a friend in the meantime, and together they managed the tea room, telling my grandson that he was the shop's cat and had to sit on the window sill. He looked wistfully at me for advice, but I stay out of personal dilemmas like that; I have my own r
oll-playing to worry about.
When I was numb from sitting on the little bench, munching my plastic vegetables and drinking air tea, I suggested we go home for a nap. I had expected a protest, but they agreed. They know life only gets better when your grandfather is worn out.
At Random - Adrian Korpel
