Over the TEACUPS

FROM THE ARCHIVES

WEIGHT WATCHERS

“We had weight watching at school today,” announced Miss 14. To my puzzled, “Weight watching?” She replied, “Oh yes, we had to do heavy lifting and watch the weights didn’t drop on our toes!’” EE, Waitakere, December 20, 1976

FOWL PLAY

Freddie was a boy evacuated from London during the Blitz. His few years of life having all been spent in the city, he found everything he saw on my sister’s farm strange and interesting. One day he stood, very seriously, watching two fowls being plucked.

Then he said to me, “Tell me, missus, do you have to undress them every night?” Cipher, August 15, 1946

NAME GAME

My young nephew and his classmates were looking at some pictures of birds when they came to one they could not identify. “Let’s ask the headmaster what it is,” one pupil said. “Please, Sir, what is this bird?” he asked. “Huia,” snapped the headmaster. “Peter Brown, Sir,” answered this small boy innocently, to the amusement of the class. ‘Thar’, May 1, 1947

EQUINE OWNERSHIP

Miss Three asked me if I would like to play My Little Pony with her. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go and set up the My Little Ponies.” The tantrum that followed left me quite bewildered.

But then Miss Three’s mother explained to me the toys weren’t My Little Ponies, they were

“her My Little Ponies!” I’m still confused, but it seems this is an important fact of three-year-old life! T Kennard, via email November 30, 2009

A LITTLE BIRD

Master Six was reprimanded for swearing. “Who told you I swear?” he asked his mother. She replied, “A little bird told me.” “Well,” he said, “it must have been a liar bird!” Hanky panky, Levin, February 6, 1995

OH, MY ACHING BACK!

Overheard at the local supermarket – a wife, gripping her lower back in the checkout queue, moaned, “My back is killing me!” Her husband replied, “Well it’s taking a bloody long time!” Stephanie, Stratford, June 3, 2002

DON’T WAKE THE BABY!

Before taking Mia (4) to ballet, I asked her to go and get her jacket, but to make sure she was very quiet because I didn’t want her to wake her baby brother. She came back into the lounge and announced, in all seriousness, that she was “so quiet, I didn’t even swallow my spit!” Grandma Cush, Auckland, October 9, 2017

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

My mother has always been rather soft-hearted, but I thought she was overdoing it a bit the other day when she spied a sick-looking hedgehog through the kitchen window. Upon taking a saucer of warm milk to it, however, Mum discovered – much to her embarrassment – it was our long-lost hearth brush! Denise, Wellington, December 22, 1969

ENOUGH SAID

My friend’s little grandson (three-and-a-half) is very much a live wire. When I was visiting one day, I found her sitting on her verandah with her head in her hands. “Have you a headache?” I asked. A voice rang out from the lounge in reply, “Mum’s got the headache, Grandma’s got me.” No further explanation was needed. Elsie, Whakatane, January 6, 1997