Meatloaf

My parents just found out about my scooter.

I wondered how long it would take them. Mum's been at school all week, and dad wouldn't find out until she read my blog and told him about it. And read it and tell him she clearly did.

"What the fuck do you think you are playing at?" my dad yelled down the webcam. Or: his shirt button yelled down the webcam. Mum's face was taking up the whole screen.
Mum pressed her lips together. "What is the one thing I have always asked you to never do, Holly? One thing?"
"Don't run holding scissors?"
"No. Don't ride a motorbike."
"It's not a motorbike. It's a scooter."
"It's a motorbike. It's a slow motorbike."
"It's a fast bicycle, mum."
Dad started pulling at the wheelie chair.
"Let me speak to her. I want to speak to her."
Mum leant towards the camera.
"Your dad wants to speak to you now," she informed me, in case I was both blind and deaf.
Dad sat down so that all I could see was his neck and chin, and mum perched on the chair next to him.
"Don't sit on my frigging glasses!" he shouted immediately. "Jesus Christ."
"I didn't! They are not sat on! I sat next to them!"
"Why are they bent in the shape of your butt then?" Dad put them on and glared at me. "One day and you fucking crashed the thing?"
"Only into a fence."
"Who do you think you are: Meatloaf? Sell it immediately. You are not born to ride motorbikes. You're like your mother."
"Oy," mum said. Then she poked the top of her head into the screen. "This is my contemptuous look, Holly. I am giving your father a contemptuous look."
"That's not contempt," dad replied, scrunching his face up and shaking his fist at the camera. "This is contempt."
"That looks like anger."
"No - this is anger." He did the same face.
"That's nothing like anger."
"And this is happy." Dad did the same face. "See how versatile I am?"
Mum pushed him out the way and stuck her face back in the webcam.
"I'm still contemptuous, as you can see. Holly, sell the motorbike."
"Did you get hurt?" dad barked, pushing mum out of the way again. "Did you break it?"
"No, but the basket fell off."
At which point dad shouted with laughter.
"The basket? What kind of motorbike is this? Too right you're not Meatloaf. Meatloaf doesn't have a basket on his motorbike."
"I told you it's a scooter."
"Give it up, Holly. You remember when you decided to ride my bike, eighteen months ago? And you put that poofy girl's seat on it and then crashed it and wouldn't get on again? I still have to ride that because I can't work out how to get it off again. A man's bike with a girl's fat bottom seat. I get laughed at by the boys."
"He does," mum added.
"Although it is pretty comfortable."
"It is," mum agreed.
"But still: a fat bottomed girl's seat. I'm not a fat bottomed girl. Sell the motorbike, Holly."
"No. And it's a scooter."
"Don't make me come over there," mum said, leaning into the webcam again. "See this? This is my threatening face, Holly. Look at it and take note. I don't like motorbikes."
"And you're not meatloaf."
"I know, but it's a scooter."

Parents put a lot of hard work and effort into turning their little spoilt brats into decent, workable human beings: they don't really want to see all of that effort get wrapped around a tree, or ploughed into a rice field. I can see that. But I'm going to be super careful, from now on. So careful, that nobody will have reason to worry about me and my transport.

Which is, for the record, a scooter.