Rare is the day that I get to pick on my significant other (don’t ya love politically correct terms?) Recently, on a trip, in the middle of an insanely fast drive on a no-speed-limit motorway, and without warning, I announced that I had a headache. To a male companion, this could be (a) an annoyance on her part only; (b) an impending catastrophe when we get home or, even worse, (c) Flo Rida has to be turned off.

Of course, it was Sunday. Holland shuts down at precisely 6pm Saturday night, and doesn’t re-open until 1pm, Monday. Whether you are Catholic or not, you WILL take a day (and a half) of rest and get it right with God. And you will have limited options where one may purchase life’s necessities, specifically, my choice of headache tablets. A gas station, actually, was our only choice.

So, up to this point in time, Significant Other’s linguistic abilities have put me to shame. Many unintended pleasures have ensued, courtesy of my gob-maggot butchering of the Dutch language. And then there is his French. On a recent visit to Paris, his ‘Francaise’ spilled forth flawlessly. I could have slapped him. Luckily for him, jealousy is not one of my indulgences….

Back to the headache. To save the remainder of our evening, S.O. dashed into a servo and came out with a pack of tablets. “Here you go” he said. My Dutch isn’t polished. Actually, it’s pretty embarrassing. But on closer inspection, I saw that he had bought me Panadol. For children. Oh well, I thought. I’ll just double the dose. Except I shouldn’t. It’s not only for children, but for infants. And tablet-form, it is not. They are suppositories. SUPPOSITORIES. And at the dose they are recommending, I would need to jam in 12 to 15 of them. So much for spewing Dutch over my head and under my self-esteem! A devout believer in gloating, he looked like road-kill after I was finished with him.

Linguistic inadequacy (ability) aside, we have entered the home stretch now. 6 days to go (7 hours, 29 minutes) till we leave for NY. Of course, everything has been left to the last minute. Like packing. Big boxes were brought home over a week ago, and there they sit, in the hall, in the way, a reminder of what a procrastinating sloth I am. I nearly got to them yesterday – but today, I will probably ignore them one last time and then that’s final! The question, of course, is whether to ship Scarf home, or whether to let her join us on the plane (after her last emotional outburst there is no doubt that “it” is a ‘she’ – and with “Permanent Menstrual Syndrome to boot). On the one hand, she deserves a spot on the aircraft with us, but I am afraid that an unexpected outburst could get us tackled by some undercover air marshalls. I say cargo class it is.

Not contented with her 8x8 padded cubby, hibernation evades the choke-hold when busy-ness surrounds her. Cramming in last minute playdates, favorite food and weekend road trips, Scarf bristles and hisses at every failure to include her. But she’s in luck. Our Spring here has ended apparently, and we are back to wind and rain – inches of it actually – so probably, her enforced sabbatical will be postponed until, at least, we leave.