Chips

“I haven’t had chips like this since I was ten,” I said.

She kept eating, but her eyes said she was looking for an explanation.

My daughter, the nine year old, she never believes a word I say, and she thinks I make every thing up. I do with most things, so I guess its my own fault she suspicious. We were waiting for her mother who was in some shop or another when the sudden urge for a bag of chips came over us when we could smell them from the nearby chip-shop.

“Well,” I said, “when I was nine or ten, we, me and a few friends used to go to the swimming baths in town. We would have enough money to pay in, the bus fair there and back, and a bag of chips from the chippy next to the bus-stance when we came out,” I said telling her the story of my adventurous youth.

“You used to go on the bus by yourself when you were the same age as me?” she asked. Her eyes were aghast, as if getting on a bus on your own was a crime.

“Yes, every week. Father, old Jimmy your granddad, used to roll up my trunks in a pit towel and stuff it under my arm, and that was me ready for the bus.”

“A rolled up towel?” Her brow frowned, trying to picture a rolled up pit towel.

“Yes, a rolled up towel, like a rolled up newspaper. We didn’t have fancy back packs like you do,” I said, giving her a nudge.

“Aye right,” she dismissed, nudging me back, and then blowing another hot chip she wasn’t about to give up on, before eating it with her teeth, and not caring who was watching her as we sat on a bench.

“What are you laughing at?” she enquired when she caught me watching her.

“I was just thinking about when I used to blow chips like that after the baths,” I said and grinned. “Standing waiting on the bus home, eating big hot chips, trying to put a brave face on so nobody thought you were a wimp.”

“But if they are hot you’ve got to blow them!” she said indignant while blowing another chip.

I just smiled.

“They are good, a bit hot but good. Are yours good Dad?” she said with enthusiasm.

“Yes love they are indeed,” I said as her Mother approached.

“Mum, Dad said he used to go on the bus with his pals when he was my age,” she said, all in one breath running towards her Mother

“Don’t listen to him hen, he’s just a blether,” said her mother stealing one of my chips. Then blowing it like a mad woman because she’s realised they are too hot.

Me and the wean burst out laughing. Her Mother asked what we were laughing at as we make our way to the car, and she feigned a mood because she wasn't privy to our little joke.