Report 16: Day 15

Alcohol units: 150

Showers: 6

Cat: 1(feral)

Dog: 1

Wife: 1

Kids alive: 4

Potatoes: Unsure

Father-in-laws: 1

Easter Eggs: 28

Dear Diary, things are hotting up here.

After yesterday’s fatality (1 x dead scarecrow) the house is in a somber and reflective mood. We are like a poorly written version of ‘Ozark’ right now…if the Jason Bateman TV show was based in suburban Cape Town and the drugs were melatonin (I now have to smuggle it in when I travel, since the health minister banned Clicks from selling it) and some almost ready weed being grown in the back garden for which scarecrows have given their lives for.

On the night before the Easter Bunny arrives, I sit here typing and regaling my story about a house of 5 that became a house of 6, became a house of 8.

You will remember that during the debacle of the “police raid” I happened to bump into my sister-in-law and my niece in the kitchen; given that up until then they had been living several streets away locked down in their own house this came as a bit of a shock to me; what shocked me further was that they had actually been in our house for a week without me even knowing about it!

Here is the story; but first a recap.

Previously on “days of our wives”

You will remember that when my father-in-law arrived 2 weeks ago, my wife put up quite the argument that he could not come in as we were all in lockdown and trying to limit the spread of Corona; a sound and reasonable point to make in these uncertain times. For all intents and purposes, I agreed with her, except that he just popped round to say hi to the kids and he had arrived with a full bottle of Bells in hand. I was worried about the alcohol stocks running low and this (at least in the short term) seemed to provide a brief top-up of said supplies.

My wife relented, the FiL and I sat down to have a drink. Long story short, Poppie ended up moving in, now wears my clothes (he didn’t bring any), drinks my booze (same reason as the clothes) and helping (in his own unique way) to get the distillery up and running; all seemed fine in this topsy-turvy world.

Here’s the twist in the tail dear Diary.

About a week ago my sister-in-law’s hot water cylinder burst, sending a shower of water everywhere through their attic (apparently the Christmas tree and decorations now needed replacing) while at the same time leaving them without any hot water. It was going to take an emergency plumber a couple of days to do the repairs and while this was happening my wife suggested they move into the granny flat.

The reason I wasn’t informed of our new “tenants” was that my wife thought that given the fight she put up when the FiL moved in, changing her tune now would seem a bit odd and disingenuous (she would be right). As it was only for two days, she thought they would be in and out and nobody would be any the wiser; to be fair, sound thinking.

What they hadn’t factored in was the delays in ordering a new geyser and what was one or two days become a week…by then it became more and more difficult to let me know.

This of course explains two things quite clearly. Firstly, as my wife tells me, by day three things were becoming quite worrying as Poppie and I were spending more and more time in the garden which of course is close to the granny flat and the chances of the new tenants being found out was increasing, this resulted in her being overly nice to me in case it all unraveled and she needed a sympathetic and understanding landing.

Secondly, it also explains the increase in wine and gin bottles being slowly secreted by our household. As the sister-in-law was now being forced to hideout in the granny flat for longer, she needed something to get through the day, which I completely understand.

It may also explain the sudden jump in internet usage in our house as well – we did 200 gigs last week and pretty sure it wasn’t Poppie uploading TikTok videos!

There are a few positives here Dear Diary.

Firstly, the SiL having realized that she would be locked down in the flat for an extended period had Ubered to her house in the dead of night and retrieved a large supply of drinks (she needed an Uber XL on way back) to get her through the days. She strategized well…she says we can now add this to the stockpile. She also bought extra Easter eggs, so the collection has now jumped significantly!

In the spirit of Perestroika and Glasnost I also owned up to both Joseph and my marijuana plantation and the distillery. As it turns out the wife already knew about the plantation after Joseph had asked her to purchase a less chemically based weed-killer as he hadn’t wanted to inhale any toxic chemicals when the crop was ready.

I had wrongly assumed that some sort of “Omerta” had existed between Joseph and I when it came to growing our drugs but as it turned out when it came to his smoking habits and health, Joseph needed only the most ecologically friendly of weed killers and had no time for secrecies when it came to crop management.

The wife has also offered to help out with the distillery and the manufacturing process; I had explained the back story to Poppie and my dilemmas with the cooking process and she has been brought on as an official advisor as far as ingredients and preparation goes.

In all, what was a rollercoaster of a few days has turned into quite a positive time for us just ahead of the Easter Bunny arriving; which is a good thing given that we have 4 children about to go into a chocolate eating fest in lockdown. The warders are preparing for the worst.

RH

PS. mentioned gently to the SiL re the higher internet usage; she tells me that they brought their own wireless with them so as not to arouse suspicion – they haven’t even logged in to ours! It seems dear Diary that there is another user of the Wifi that I am unable to track down at this stage?