Hot Sauce - Michael Sheridan

We’re on holiday in Spain.  Elizabeth’s business partner Damien owns a holiday villa on a golf course here.  It’s set up as a holiday rental business.  We just bought half of it from him.  Having done so, we needed to go see it.  So, we are all on a semi-business holiday in Spain together.

This morning we all went to the beach.  Elizabeth and Damien have now gone furniture shopping.  Max and I have gone back home for him to have a little down time.  Me too, hopefully.

The down time starts with Max running around the pool area.  Spain doesn’t seem to be bothered about pool fences, but Max is extremely cautious, dare I say, even sensible.  I sit on the banana lounge.

We’ve been here a few days now and Max has a routine for this space.  There’s a variety of pool toys in a huge plastic box.  All of these have accumulated from guests who have left them behind, presumably having only bought them for here, and not wanting to cart them back.  There are a dozen pool noodles and an inflatable everything.

Max gets the noodles and props them all up on their ends in the corner.  Up on top of the pump box.  Then he gets a bucket and tries to drink the pool water.  Then he goes back to straighten the noodles.  There’s a shed he can raid for a rake or a pressure hose.  He likes to rake the concrete.

There’s also a garden hose that is supposed to be for the front of the house, where there’s a tap, but Max has that in the pool area too.  The round connector for the tap just happens to fit perfectly into a European power outlet.  There just happens to be one of those power outlets here for the outdoor lights.  There's no tap for the hose out the back here.  The hose, as always, has been plugged back into the power.

After a while I go back inside.  I’ve been trying to figure out how to use the television.  There’s a mixture of electronic boxes for connecting portable devices, an a UKTV box, which is apparently, a must-have for a holiday villa in Spain.  Max follows me back inside.

Because I have a remote, Max now must also has a remote.  There had been a brief squabble, but I let him have the one I didn't think I needed.  He is also trying to make things happen on the TV too.  Then he’s distracted from that and he’s taken something out from the fridge.  He is running around with it whatever it is, and a spoon.

OMFG!  It’s yoghurt in a glass jar.  The floors are marble.  He’s already broken several of these since we got here.  They are a pain to clean up.  Glass shards and globs of yoghurt explode everywhere.  Sharp inside sticky on everything within three metres.  You need to mop and sweep and mop again and sweep.  I'm not letting that happen again right now.  It looks like the down time has run out because Max is now hungry.  Actually, I am hungry too.

After getting the yoghurt jar back from him, and safely back in to the fridge, I decide it's time to go out again.  We're going over to the restaurant.

Once we get there, we get our order in and watch the golf course.  I’ve ordered myself the Caesar salad and a fajita for Max.  I’m drinking water and Max has a hot chocolate.  The food takes a while to get there, so Max has finished his drink before his food arrives.  

When the food does arrive, he immediately dumps all the dishes of sauce, on to the top of his potato chunks.  Then he eats the sauces with his hand.  I eat my food fairly quickly and then I get my phone out and check my email.

And then suddenly, Max is darting across the courtyard.  He gets to another table and tries to grab the first drink he can get to.  Judging by the number of empty glasses, and all the bags of clubs, a large group of English golfers has had a few rounds already.  Rehydrating after coming in from the course!

The golfers are finding it hysterical that my six-year-old is stealing drinks.  A commendable effort according to one.  I’m worried that he might actually get one and drink it.

At this moment, Damien sends me a text.  And then another.  I don't have time to look and read it right now.    Damien has a very particular writing style.  Let's just say that this message was two hundred or more words, and in extraordinarily dense prose that would bemuse the most verbose lawyer and may, if I might be so bold, even astonish the most absurdly unnecessarily ridiculously long-winded public servant.  And his sentences are long.

Max had worked his way through the guacamole and must have just gotten to the hot sauce.  It seems like the hot sauce in Spain, IS HOT.  He’d finished his drink before his food arrived, it took me only a few minutes to eat mine, and it’s taken him an age to get this far.  So, I have long since finished my drink too.  Max had really needed to act fast when he found the hot sauce to be too hot, and he improvised.  He's gone straight for the first drinks he could see. 

I chase after Max and drag him back first into the bar.  “Dos más aguas, por favor.  Pronto.”  I hope that's Spanish for two more waters please quickly.  And then I drag him back to our table.

The water comes quickly.  Max drinks and continues eating.  He seems to like the hot sauce, now that he has plenty of water.

I glance at the texts.  They’re home.  There’s a remote missing.  It’s the one for the UKTV box.

Damien elaborates about what the remote looks like.  Apparently, it has a long string of post-it's with usage instructions.  I haven’t seen that one in a while.  Not even sure if I've seen it today.  Maybe that's why I couldn't get the TV to work.  He keeps texting about it.  I actually, have only seen the two others.  The same two that he says are still there.  He is adamant that Max must have done something with it.  I really don’t think that happened.  I also don't care quite as much as Damien seems to right at this moment.  I let my eyes glaze and don't get drawn in.

We finish lunch and go back.  I've told Max that we're all going for a swim when we get home.

Damien still has not found the remote.  I still don’t recall that particular one.  I still don't care.  I want to go swimming.  Max wants to go swimming.

Elizabeth wants to show me the new furnishings they've bought.  Damien wants to find his remote.  Max has taken advantage of the tension inside as an opportunity to go back to the pool.

I take a moment to follow Max outside to check on what he's doing, then I go back in.  "Stacking noodles."

Elizabeth is already showing me pots and hangings and stuff.  I'm trying to look interested.  I go back to look at Max every few minutes.

Damien still can't find the remote.

... Splooosh...

... Silence...

Elizabeth and I look at each other and then hurry outside.

Max is floating in the middle of the pool.  Fully clothed, with a pool noodle and one hand.  His hair is soaked, so he must have gone under, and his nappy has absorbed all the water it can hold.  Max is looking pleased.  Now we know that he knows how to stay safe in the pool.  Good!  Elizabeth and I laugh simultaneously.  Damien seems to not be worried if we aren’t and goes back to tearing the living room apart to find his remote.

Max protests about being fished from the pool.  I take his clothes off and put swimmers and a swim nappy on to him, then I toss him back, change my own clothes and join him. 

A while later, Max has had enough.  We go back inside.

Damien sees us coming and approaches Max.  Damien is brandishing the two remaining remotes.  “Young man!", he says sternly, "Have you seen the other one of these remotes?”

Max giggles and runs to the fridge.  Of course, he is going to get another yoghurt.  The yoghurt here is actually really good.

Actually not!  He comes back with a very cold remote control for the UKTV box.