Naughty Naughty

Scatterbrains

• Humour
• Fiction

								
With Covid-19 rules for lockdown and social distancing restrictions now in place for the long Easter weekend, Susanna is making plans for her stay-at-home time. For her this is a wonderful opportunity to catch up on sleep – nah! – waste of time; craft a few lessons for next week – nopes! – too mundane, I’ll save that for Monday; watch some Netflix – no her remote doesn’t work; listen to some of her favourite music – possibly, or write a saga or two?

Yay! The latter – it’s all she really wants to do. So, what’s on the agenda for this week?

Unable to see her granddaughter over the weekend, she had to catch up with her during the week. This saga is a wonderful memory of this special interlude of time they shared together.

 “Nanny, let’s play a game.”

“Ok. What do you have in mind?”

“Scatterbrains.”

“What’s that?”

“Nanny, where have you been all your life?” an indignant little girl looks up sharply at her nanny not knowing a game she has invented.

“Well, clever-clogs, you tell me how to play it!” Susanna smiles at the three-year-old.

“We have to write down all the things that people are doing wrong at the moment and decide if we think we should scatter their brains.”

“That sounds simple enough,” Susanna thinks about the consequences of actually doing this to all the errant people out there blatantly flouting the Covid-19 rules.

“I remember when you lost some of your brains,” she teases her granddaughter.

“Oh, Nanny, that was sooooo terrible. Don’t remind me!”

About twelve months earlier the little girl had become distraught when she began noticing bits of white foam falling out of her head. (Some tiny foam balls had become lodged in strands of her hair and had begun falling out on the kitchen floor).

Picking them up, she had turned to her father and said, “Daddy, help. I’m losing my brains!”

Her mother, a doctor, had been summoned immediately to perform an operation to put the brains back into her head. Afterwards she had had to recover with ice-cream and chocolate.

Getting organised for the game, Susanna fetched some small pieces of cardboard and together they set about making their game cards.

“Nanny, you pick first.”

“Ok. A man on Monday walked into a supermarket to return $5000’s worth of toilet rolls.”

“Why did he buy so many?”

“He thought he could resell them through the internet and make a quick profit, but E-Bay said, ‘No Way! No E-Buy – Bubbye!’

On returning the rolls to the store, the manager snorted the same retort to him, which left him feeling very sore – so sore he wrote a complaint letter to his local press.”

“Nanny, he’s going to be even more sore. We need those rolls. Roll his head and scatter his brains! Now, it’s my turn. I’m choosing this one. 

A little girl met her nanny on one of the beaches on the North Shore on Easter Sunday. They had an Easter egg hunt. Her nanny then posted a photograph of them on the internet with the heading, ‘Sneaky – we sneaked out for a few minutes!’”

The little girl then looked sadly at her nanny. “Nanny, I don’t think we should scatter her brains because she just wanted to see her nanny.”

“I know, but I didn’t see you, did I? They still did the wrong thing! They were told to stay home, and they didn’t! Scatter their brains. 

My turn.

I’m going to take a swipe at this one. An elderly lady was shopping for personal items in a supermarket. There were no hand sanitisers or soap dispensers anywhere to be found. As she was leaving, she suddenly noticed a small bag of wipes on one of the bottom shelves.

Rushing to nab this piece of gold dust, she was beaten to it by a lady many years her junior. Feeling really annoyed at this loss, the elderly lady then secretly pursued the other lady, waiting for an opportunity to swipe her wipes. Her chance came when the younger lady reached up to grab a packet of cereal off a top shelf.

Quick as lightning, the wipes were whizzed into her trolley and presented for payment at the checkout.”

“Nanny, I don’t like that! I know she’s an old woman, but she shouldn’t have stolen the wipes. She should have asked the lady if she could have them. Scatter her brains!”

“Yes, I agree. Your turn.”

“I’ve labelled this one, Playboy, because all this boy wants to do is play. On Easter Sunday we were all told to stay home and only go out if it was essential. This boy went out all day. He couldn’t stay home! Yesterday he went to a friend’s house to play and today his friend is playing with him at his house. They are not following social distance rulings and they are making a big noise.”

“I don’t think he’s not allowed to make a big noise, but, yes, I agree with you. He should be staying home and not playing around the parks and beaches, which are supposed to be closed. Scatter his brains!”

Susanna smiles as the little girl claps enthusiastically at the thought of rolling this boy’s brains all over the concrete pathway where he is, at this moment, riding his bike.

“Nanny, you’re next.”

“This one. This lady is known to me. She should have known better. Some people just don’t think the rules apply to them. This professional musician posted an article on social media depicting herself engaged in a musical gig with other musicians at her house on Easter Sunday.

The assembled orchestra flaunted their skills, flouted the rules and fluted their instruments. It was a party!”

“Didn’t she know she wasn’t supposed to have a party?” the little girl looks up quizzically at her nanny.

“Yes, she did, and what made me even more cross, on reading this article, was the deliberate knowledge of just that! She was even bragging about the flout in her article!”

“Nanny, was she blowing her own trumpet?”

“No, she plays the flute!” Susanna laughs at the little girl’s attempt at a pun. (She’s so smart, she scares me!)

“Last one!”

“Nanny this one’s mine.

A passenger recently took a packed flight from Sydney to Brisbane. After arriving at her destination, she was tested for Covid-19. 

(She must have become unwell at some point).

Nanny, she tested positive. That means she has now infected all those people she came into contact with – not just on the plane, but at both airport terminals she passed through. She must have had some idea she was not well!”

“Yes, I agree with you. What was she doing going on a plane anyway when we have been told to stay home and only do essential travel? Scatter her brains!”

“Nanny, let’s do our Easter egg hunt now.”

“Sure. You go and hide while I hide the eggs.”

Susanna then quickly collects her little stash of surprise eggs, thinking to herself, “How did she know I had these?” and scatters them around the top section of her house.

The two then happily forage around for every last piece of scattered chocolate. Sitting munching her stash, the little girl then looks up happily at her grandmother. “Nanny, can we play these two games tomorrow?”

“No! You just want the chocolate!” Susanna laughs as the little girl giggles.

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