Press The "X"

My Sixfooterplus and I have four amazing little people who sometimes CANNOT, comprehend some of the things we say especially when it's something from our youthful years in Dominica (DA). So they sometimes need it broken down, and it's during the breaking down part the fun begins. Our subject today was about a belle marché-pretty walk, that Mr. Sixfootplus participated in when he was just a five footer. Who knows, I don't know how old he was but his memory of the event would allow you to think it was only a few years ago, maybe two. Hahahahhaha. 


We have one precious girl and three amazing boys who I will NOT talk about right now because I will go on for days. He had his little girl hooked on his every word as he remembered all the things they did on the belle marché until he started talking about a têtê chien. I know, some of you are like WHAT? A têtê chein is a snake, a very big snake. Heck, lets just call it an ANACONDA, got the picture? He lost her right here. 


Apparently, during the marché-walk, someone stepped on a big spongy muscular rubbery thing.  He was so animated going over what was probably chaos, she freaked out. He started explaining that in Dominica when you see a snake, its followed by a huge announcement of SNAKE.  "What did you do?" she asked. "Run", he said, "whenever you hear snake, that is what you do, you run." That only allowed him to dig deeper into his memory bank and we began to share snake stories. 

I chimed in with my experience riding to Portsmouth on Mr. Geoff passenger bus about seeing a huge boa constrictor just after we passed the Woodfordhill River Bridge. Mr. Sixfooter now insisted that I say boa constrictor cause he had the child freaked out at this point. So I went on to say, I saw an ANACONDA just like the one in the movies. They both attacked me for saying Anaconda and accused me of exaggerating. I like to think of it, not as exaggerating but as painting word pictures, anyways.

The bus driver steered the bus and ran over the snake, then he put the bus in reverse to see if anything was there, nothing was, it did NOT die! I started to think it must've climbed into the tire hole or it was stuck on the underneath somewhere. Please people, I was around nine! so yes, I had an active imagination. I'm not nine anymore and I'm still accused of having an active imagination. hmmmmmm, Wats up with dat?

Before I knew it, Mr. Sixfoot was back in the heart of the story sharing one snake story after another, he went on to share  a snake story about the big corner near my grandparents home on Londonderry road and how he dislike walking that corner. That only prompted me to ask, walk? when did you walk that corner? oh! let me finish, was the response..I'll come back to that later...... then he said, he would speed up when he came to that corner. Naturally, I interrupted with, oh, so it's speed up now. Our daughter asked, why did you speed up? he said he'd press the gas to go around the corner fast. I said are you sure you pressed the gas and not the X?  he fell out laughing. What do you know about pressing the "X"? That only allowed me to open my extra large brown eyes in great astonishment in his direction and without using words; I asked with my eyes, What do you mean, what do I know about pressing the X? Don't forget to imagine me with my lips pressed tightly together and pulled back with my head cocked to the side. Got it? hahahhahahhah


Our poor daughter lost in the confusion ask, what is the X? I proudly expressed that it meant, pressing the gas, to go faster and Mr. sixfooter said it's the accelerator. I explained the roads didn't always give a smooth ride due to all the holes. I told her there was one piece of road, a straightaway along the backwall, close to the airport that was smooth, people would ask the driver to press the X to enjoy the ride.  I must've taken too long with my explanation because my hubby wanted to finished his belle marché story. He went on to explain spots known to have big snakes, black snakes and snakes that chased you. I never experience the chasing snakes but I did have an Abolow, a ground lizard chase me after I hit it with a tent iron. 

As I listened to Mr. Sixfootplus recall the stories of his childhood,  I felt a tad bit of sadness that our children did not experience the same freedoms and innocence of our upbringing. We do our best to have them share in the experience but it's not the same. Oh the sweet, sweet years of growing up in the hole and off of Londonderry Road.