Simple pleasures at no extra charge

Simple pleasures in life hard to come by? You don’t have to dish out the dirhams to feel great. Our folk (parents) can be so easily dismayed, we are only ever one uneaten vegetable or sibling quarrel away from a ruined day, but on the flip side, we can also be easily pleased. Here are some of life’s unexpected pleasures that don’t cost a penny.

1. When you’ve already pushed your luck 30 kilometres after the petrol light came on, you’re not even half way home, the kids are restless, you reluctantly turn off to fill up at the pump and look at that… no line! You saunter seamlessly up to an empty pump and you’re back on the road before anyone catches a whiff of the proximity to toys and sugar in the Zoom store. You feel unstoppable
2. An alert pops up on your phone, its from Netflix and it bears those magic words… “new episodes available…”
3. You wake on Friday morning, ready to fend off playful children and protect the couch from an assault of jam, glitter and unidentified sticky stuff, but the house is calm, and that can’t be the time? Yes my friend it. You’ve had what I believe they call – a lie in.
4. You present your credit card to pay the cheque after lunch and it is met with this response “we have a promotion, if you pay with this card you will receive a 20% discount on your bill.” Result.
5. During your routine damage assessment after feeding your toddler you conclude that the ratio of food ingested vs food on the floor is highly favourable *batch cooks 50 portions of whatever that was* OR You crack open your kids lunchbox, braced to find another creative way to reuse the untouched meal that you lovingly prepared. Stand down. lunchbox empty. *fist bumps the air*
6. You call your paediatrician’s office and don’t have to make alarmist remarks about fever’s (which may or may not be real) in order to be seen today. “Yes the doctor is available at 3.30pm, we will see you then.” An A1 appointment time slot, seamlessly en route home. Winner.
7. You go out for dinner, belly laugh with friends, order really well (well done you) and still get home and into your pyjamas before 10pm. Mmmmm is this what they mean by ‘having it all’? Feels like it.
8. You ask your friend where they got that lovely dress from and instead of saying – my tailor/a designer friend from her first collection/a fun little market in Barcelona/H&M 8 years ago – they say Zara, yesterday. Get in.
9. You hear stirring on the baby monitor at 3am, the stirring escalates to wailing and someone needs to investigate. Your parter whips back the sheets and springs into action and whispers “Go back to sleep. I’ve got this.”
10. You arrive at brunch for a friend’s birthday and whilst being shown to your table, you pass a happening kids play area with padded floor, cartoons on a big screen, a stack of crayons a bouncy castle and a guardian. You are positively giddy with that Friday feeling.