If you want to have a laugh at 2.30 on a cold and dark winters morning come and hang around in the shadows at our house and watch my parentals trying to take the temperature under pressure.
Thermometers. You have to love them.
You always find out that they are not working at 2.30 am when you have two children burning up with 39 degree temperatures.
For the first sibling the parentals used to have an old fashioned mercury thermometer.
Obviously these are impossible to read. You twist them around and around in the dim night light trying to see anything. Thirteen minutes later by tilting your head at an odd angle and twisting the thermometer at an even odder one, you think you can see the mercury. But by then so much time has passed that the temperature has changed anyway.
For the second sibling they went with the digital armpit variety. They went through several of these and never got one that worked. All that happened was that their dislike of thermometers increased.
The third sibling simply got measured with a palm to his forehead.
He won't feel bitter later in life.
When I arrived they splashed out. Big time.
No more dicking around. Nossir!
They bought the most expensive digital thermometer in the shop. It cost them as much as a small car.
It comes with little condom-like fittings and an applicator and a booklet with 739 pages.
It is the bees knees.
So you should have heard the language at 2.30am when the male parental with the thunder face, under pressure, siblings sweating and hallucinating, sheets melting - tried to take their temperature.
Reading 2.31 am = 34.5 degrees
Reading 2.35 am = 42 degrees
Reading 2.37 am = 39.6 degrees
Reading 2.39 am = 38.5 degrees
His language was delightful. He was shaking and spitting as he spoke.
I think he wishes they had bought a small car.
It is quite funny.
Of course I wont let him near me with it. I am not having my eardrum perforated with his early morning lack of coordination.
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