British Parent Bloggers

 An article by guest writer Joanna Cake

 When the kids were smaller, one of the things I hated most was trying to hack round the supermarket with the pair of them in tow. Far too stressful. As fast as I got one dressed to go out, the other would be removing clothing. Neither wanted to get into the double trolley and then neither would want to get out again. Once inside, my daughter could be kept quiet with food bribery but my son would only be pacified by Lego, which started to prove expensive.

My daughter would also actively disprove the theory that children are not affected by external influences on the television. I was informed that I shouldn’t tell her off for getting banana on her clothes because if I used Ariel, it would come out. She also insisted that we buy Kingsmill ‘because it was better bread’. She would have been about three at the time!

So I made use of the online delivery services. In those days, these were still quite new with various teething problems but the more reliable service was provided by Sainsburys with their mid-week special. If you spent over £50, you got free delivery on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

If I wanted lots of very specific organic meat, I would order from the creme de la creme - as in Waitrose. One day, I told a friend that I was about to place an order and she asked me for a favour. Could I get her some organic tampons made by this one particular company and which were only stocked by Waitrose. ‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘No problem.’

When the delivery man arrived, he stood there with his clipboard listing the things that they hadn’t been able to deliver and these tampons were among them. As you can imagine, his little face was all pink and I was trying not to smirk as he told me that they couldn’t provide the organic tampons.

However, he was delighted to inform me that they had a substitute instead. I was immediately crestfallen at the prospect of a packet of Tampax but, no.

He handed me the bag with almost a flourish.

It contained…

… wait for it…

Two packets of something called Mr Majelka’s Magic Bendy Drinking Straws.

You know, the type that have the little hinge in about an inch down that bends to make sucking without spilling easier. I think there’s a possibility that you could bend them into shapes for parties as well but I couldn’t read the blurb on the box properly since my eyes had filled with tears because it was just too funny… the idea of trying to insert one of those instead of an absorbent tampon.

Taking one box out and looking at him quizzically I allowed him to examine it for himself, I can still see his face now - all red with discomfort and me, standing on my doorstep, shrieking with hysterical laughter. I was practically on my back with my legs in the air, I was that tickled.

I was so tempted to tell him I’d keep one box and report back on how effective they were.

Poor, poor man, by the time I’d stopped laughing, handed them back as being an unsuitable substitute and signed the forms, he was almost puce with embarrassment.

I was still chuckling as he drove away.