Pockets

There is a thing that happens when your children are all grown up. Suddenly you have pockets. Pockets on coats, pockets in bags, pockets on jeans. It’s not that these pockets suddenly appear. It’s more that these pockets suddenly become yours.

Let me explain, see when you have kids your pockets are always full of crap. There’s the grotty tissues and bits of Lego. There’s the toy cars and odd socks, used wet wipes and half-eaten snacks. Your bra isn’t even your own, a dummy snuck in there for safekeeping, just in case of emergency.

All that changes when your kids are grown up (or at least it could – if you wanna keep a dummy in your bra, you go ahead. No judgement here.)

I am reminded about this – the pockets, not the unfortunate picture I now have of middle-aged women walking about with dummies in their bras. Stop! Pockets!

I am reminded of pockets after my grandkids have gone home.

I have battled through the mountain of laundry – how many towels does a 6-year-old need? I’ve sorted through my many snot-covered changes of clothes. I pull out my favourite pair of jeans from the clean pile, and pulling them on, slip my fingers into the pocket.

Arggh! It’s disgusting.

A first it feels just gritty, but further explorations reveal something slimy. And there’s a whiff. Standing at the back door turning out my pockets, they are encrusted with some unidentifiable foodstuff. It resembles a banana, blackened and squishy, but not even I would have put a banana in my pocket. A cracker maybe? Too dark for a rice cake, it sticks to my pocket like super glue. Flicking it off with my purple fingernails only squashes it up inside my nail.

That’s another thing I have time for, now my kids are gone – doing my nails. 

But back to the pockets. I stand for ten minutes picking out something that appears to be both slimy and crunchy. Nervously, I slide my hand into the other pocket and am almost relieved until I find the ever-familiar disintegrated tissue.

Searching through the baby’s nappy bag was no better. Looking for wet wipes while Mum was away, my hand slid into the multiple pockets with increasing dread. Some had sticky socks in, others a wide array of half-gummed snacks, others had changes of clothes and an assortment of bricks but there was always one, full of soggy used wet wipes and snotty tissues. And you could never tell which pocket was which, the bag was so cavernous you could fit a very grubby house in there.

I tell you this not to shame my wonderful daughter-in-law, but to make my point about pockets. They are no longer under your control.

No one tells you these things, do they? That’s why you can count on me. Telling you how it is. Or used to be? Or will be?

So, this is for all the mums out there. One day, you too will be free to have pockets again. You too will slide your hand into said pockets with abandon, with no fear of something slimy lurking within.

At worst you might find a rather dusty Murry mint, on a good day the TV remote you’ve been searching for.

Fear not, dear friends, soon your pockets will be free.

(An intersting aside, when I was searching for images of pockets the majority of images were of men – come the glorious revolution pockets will be free for all!)