Bubble Wrap Lockdown?

Almost a week ago, the strangest thing happened. My siblings and I were working on the new beach chalets we have been rebuilding next to our home, it was eleven o’clock and our morning break beckoned for one of us to make coffee and bring biscuits. I duly elected myself, being between tasks. As I entered our home, I noticed something peculiar, there was bubble wrap over the hallway table.

I stopped in my tracks like a cat who is suddenly caught aware by an alien object in their territory. Why was there bubble wrap over the hallway table? I turned to the stairs to see Sacha, one of our cats, observing me between two banisters, with his yellow-green eyes (he looks exactly like General Grievous from Star Wars). Was he giving me his concerned, worried and confused look, I wondered? I continued upstairs, Sacha turning and bounding from off his step as I passed by, as if motioning me to follow him.

Sacha, or General Grievous.

As I rose up onto the first floor, the lounge came into view and I immediately dashed sideways into the kitchen. I dashed there not just because it was my initial destination, but like a soldier who spots danger and jumps into a nearby bush, the kitchen from behind the bar offered better protection from the lounge. What I saw was perhaps one of the most disconcerting things a son could see, his mother bubble-wrapping the household furniture.

There she was, my Madre (the one they call colloquially, the Kukinator) kneeling next to her coffee table, intently wrapping it up, with scissors and parcel tape in hand. She had quite ignored my coming upstairs, which was probably a disconcerting sign given the unorthodox event happening in front of me. Dozens of possibilities arose in my mind to the cause of this bizarre behaviour, and I feared the worse of them.

I was instantly then reminded of one of the greatest mysteries that has ever befallen my close friends, my household and perhaps even the world, if they would give such attention as Sherlock might have. I recalled the dreaded inscription of ‘J A C K S O N’ into mum’s coffee table, which occurred in the summer of 2012 on a day that has lived in infamy. It was an event comparable to when ‘Mene, Tekel, Peres‘ was inscribed by a ghostly hand onto the palace walls of Belshazzar during his royal feast, Daniel an Israelite was summoned to discern the message where others had not been able to, and he foretold the King’s downfall by the hands of the Medes and Persians.

The dreaded inscription.

Never before have we, en masse, been subjected to the fury of my mother when she discovered those ominous letters etched into her own coffee table; and her rage was made especially worse because nobody owned up to it (one must be honest with mothers). The several lads amongst us quickly set flight as her wrath rose. Only Brother and I, with nowhere else to go, remained. We were subjected immediately to rectifying the sacrilege, to sanding and re-oiling. The rest had leapt overboard, made for the hills – they hadn’t flinched for honour’s sake.

Justice was not seen to that day, and everyday since we have wondered which one of us had done it: who had scribed ‘J A C K S O N’ into my mother’s coffee table? Nobody has owned up. Many have had their theories and entire gatherings for drinking have become sober, yet heated seminars on the topic. There were likely culprits, with previous records of mischief, or others possessing certain characteristic which might pertain to such an act of vandalism. Some told tales of varying possibilities, even accusing Jackson himself. Motives speculated from revenge to jealousy, money to edgy artistry, or just simple stupidity. Or, as one later quoted, ‘some men just want to watch the world burn’.

It was with this memory, now ablaze in my mind, I carefully turned the kettle on whilst observing with horror my Madre’s doings.

‘Um, Ma… What are you doing?’ I asked timidly, bending my knees in expectation to dive behind the cabinets.

Madre, without looking up, said coldly:

‘Someone – I don’t know whether it was your brother, your father, or you – left a coffee cup, the pink striped one, on the downstairs table. It has left a ring. I am sick and tired of people not caring for the furniture in my household. It [bubble wrap] shall stay like this until you all get the message.’

The lounge’s coffee table and Padre’s legs.

Escaping outside, with a rattling tray of coffees and biscuits, I could breath once more. I gathered my siblings to inform them of the development whilst we paused for coffee. First, there was a sucking of air, then we couldn’t restrain ourselves and fell into nervous hysterics.

But who was the mug who had left the coffee mug on the hallway table? Who had had the pink striped mug? It was not mine, nor Brother’s, nor Padre’s, but Sister’s! Oh, the glee on mine and Brother’s face when we realised it was not us who was at fault this time, but golden-haired Sister.

Padre then appeared, having just returned from the hospital, still limping (no, nothing Covid related). The evening before my brother had dropped a pint glass which shattered over the kitchen floor. Sister had almost flipped with exasperation, for it was her chosen squash glass. Brother cleaned the mess up and Madre said he should hoover. Perhaps he understood her saying ‘hover’. The next morning, Brother having not hoovered the kitchen floor, Padre stepped on a shard of glass which lodged itself irretrievably into his foot. Blame was easily placed, but Brother retorted that Padre should have been more careful since he knew that a glass had recently been smashed on the kitchen floor.

What can I take from all this? One, it is not only me who breaks glasses, but Brother is perfectly capable of doing so as well. Two, Sister should not be so precious about her drinking vessels, but be precious where she places them in the future, and preferably on a coaster. Three, Padre should wear the slippers he owns (two pairs). And four, Madre has a large roll of bubble wrap stored if I ever need to send something precious away safely. Oh, and yes, I need no reflection on my part. Hurrah!

As they say, a phalanx is only as strong as its weakest hoplite, so too is a family, I suppose. We will have to rest our mugs or feet on bubble wrap for the coming future. That is until Mother, the Kukinator, decides to lift the Bubble Wrap Lockdown.