Warning: car doors are a health hazard

A word of warning about car doors – specifically front-seat car doors. I’m not talking about back-seat car doors because every parent who has ever wrestled a child into the back seat knows how to work the angles without spilling a drop of their child’s blood. It’s an art form.

If it was an Olympic sport, Thorpey wouldn’t get past the first heat because balance and the ability to hang on are everything. But cheap shots aside, front doors are a different and dangerous kettle of fish when children are involved.

Recently, my wife, Kate, was washing the car on a Sunday morning. And being the whirlwind that she is, she had progressed to the interior before I was out of my pyjamas. So by the time I emerged from the house, our two-year-old girl, Darcey, was champing at the bit to squirt some Mr Sheen on the dash.

I picked her up off the pavement and swung about to put her in the front seat but the door was watching and waiting. The crunching sound of the metal on my cheekbone was bad enough, but the choice words that followed were a mind-altering experience for Darcey.

To make matters worse, Kate ran around in a panic to point out that it was only a matter of time until I had a shiner that would put Mr Sheen to shame. Four days later, when my eye was a fascinating mix of purple and yellow, I took Darcey supermarket shopping.

Darcey and I had been supermarket shopping before and it had always been as easy as picking peas. She was happy to ride in the trolley and I would eventually return home with two tonnes of shopping and a toddler, somewhere among it all, blissfully satisfied that she’d had a great day out.

But on this particular day, Darcey didn’t want to ride in the trolley. The moment we walked into the supermarket she bolted straight for the carrots. Within three seconds she had savaged half a dozen like a crazed rabbit. I was busy hiding them beneath the broccoli when she reached the hydroponic tomatoes at $4.59 a kilogram. By the time I tackled her, she had punctured $10 worth.

Unhappy with my attempt to put her in the trolley, she threw herself on the ground and chucked a wobbly of seismic proportions in aisle two. I smiled knowingly at a passing mother but instead of sympathy, she snarled at me and threw a protective arm around her child.

At this point, I noticed several other people showing more than a passing interest in my efforts to wrestle Darcey into the trolley. With a shock I realised why. My black eye was a sure indication that I was a violent and unstable man.

I stopped wrestling and started to pacify. I gave Darcey a plastic tub of chicken and corn soup. I was sure it was unbreakable. Two minutes later an announcement came over the supermarket PA: “Bucket and mop to aisle three please. Bucket and mop to aisle three.”

By the time we reached the checkout, Darcey had savaged a packet of sausages, half a kilogram of grapes and a bag of rice - which unbeknown to me was now at the bottom of the trolley and leaking onto the floor. I remember crunching and slipping my way through aisles seven, eight and nine, thinking some idiot had spilt rice everywhere.

And that’s just what I was telling the checkout attendant as I lifted the near-empty packet of rice from the trolley and scattered the remaining grains onto her conveyer belt.

She shot me an accusing look but by now Darcey was raging against the world and I was in no mood to be trifled with. I gave the attendant a withering glare from my evil eye and she processed my shopping without delay.

I left the supermarket with Darcey’s thrashing body and five bags of shopping in my arms. By the time we reached the car she’d torn a button from my shirt, my face was red with exertion, and half the car park was watching.

I dropped the shopping and bundled her into the back seat. I opened the front door. I swung around to pick up the shopping, I turned back ... crunchhhhh.

I don’t know how long I ranted for but when I finished Darcey was wide-eyed with wonder and the car park was eerily quiet. As I drove out the gates I could have sworn I saw an elderly man squinting at my number plate.

Now my greatest worry is not the front door of the car but the front door of the house and the moment the police come knocking in search of the dangerous man inside with the black eye and the suspected broken nose.

by Bruce Atherton

This article was first published in Australian Family Magazine, June 2004.