Date: 9th September 2022
Our second blog from our Donald.
Baby Blue Who…
The supermarket is aw excited, so it is.
Ms. Mitchell is due back after being on maternity leave.
Everybody has kept in touch since the baby shower apart from Mr. Losa, who everybody thinks is a lovely manager of the store but now and again he can be a wee bit grumpy. Today, when Lisa was stacking the shelves, he was very upset when one of the others in the front facing shelving squad put a tin of baked beans onto the shelf backwards.
Somebody suggested that they had done this deliberately just to wind Mr. Losa up…
Picture the scene…
It’s the new Megastore supermarket on the edge of a town, not dissimilar to many other towns in Scotland. The time is 7am. Everyone is in the canteen prior to the 8am store opening when, in comes Ms. Mitchell, with her new-born baby girl and a stranger.
The stranger is not announced by name but by title. This is…
The Nanny.
The Big Levein, wondering how the hell he ever got here is standing like a spare actor on a River City set, afraid to move and totally unaware of what he is in for.
Mr. Losa looks up from his papers and drops his glasses from the top of his nose towards the end of it to get a “better look.” It is clear he was not expecting a nanny.
The look on the Big Levein’s face tells everyone that he was not expecting to be there either, but here he is. With a shoulder bag, bright purple, nappy in one hand and a nervous twitch in the other.
Somewhere in a car park, The Budge is sitting watching from her vantage point in her awfy big car whilst the secret camera pitched on the baby bag records and shows her everything The Big Levein points it at.
This supermarket is the last one which the Budge has no control over in this wee town and she wants some influence. Mr. Losa has held out and The Big Levein was offered to Ms. Mitchell as a handy helper over an impromptu coffee at the nursery run by The Budge. The Big Levein knew nothing about it until he was summoned from his Brechin Cottage to hear her plan.
The Big Levein didn’t like her plan.
He thought it was precisely what, at that moment, was precisely being deposited in the baby’s new Pampers. As everyone had crowded round the baby to coo and aaah at it – apart from Mr. Losa, the noise and the smell emanating from the baby was unmistakeable. At first the Big Levein thought it was the big guy with the security uniform on as he could not imagine any of the slight looking till girls being capable of such a noise until the baby was being handed back to him with Ms. Mitchell’s strange grin. Slowly it dawned on him that the baby was capable of this horrendous noise and the smell…Oh God the smell…
Ms. Mitchell indicates with her head where the baby changing room is and to The Big Levein’s horror he realises that he, the baby and the smell are being sent to a confined space – with him! He is about to suggest they wait a few minutes before realising that this, whilst a clear metaphor for his current task, is also what is necessary for his “cover”. He also knows that The Budge is watching.
Once the door of the baby changing room is closed, the half nuclear waste, half Velcro nappy contents are inexpertly dealt with. Realising that nappies do not come with instructions on the packet threw him for a good ten minutes, but he figured something out – after he realised the nappy did not go on the baby’s head.
Emerging from the changing room, people are in the midst of the final part of the briefing. What will everybody do for the next half hour? Flustered from his first task, traumatised by the sights and sounds of it, the Big Levein places the baby bag the wrong way round. The Budge can only hear muffled noises and the camera is facing the wall, she can see nothing. Cursing and swearing in the car park, she attracts the attention of a patrol car passing by. It is a bit early to patrol the local primary school where there has been a massive issue over the 50p mix-up counter at the local Spar, two constables have a half hour or so to waste so have the time to observe a suspicious woman in a vehicle curse and swear at a phone screen.
They idle by the entrance and observe.
The briefing comes to an end and the room begins to clear. The Big Levein’s mission is to gain entry into the Manager’s Office and find anything incriminating or dodgy that can be used by The Budge to recruit Mr. Losa into her organisation. He rises to approach Mr. Losa over whether it would be a good idea to station him out of the way in that office when Ms. Mitchell takes the baby from him to show her round where mummy works. The Big Levein realises he is expected to follow. So, he does. Three paces behind, like a compliant partner.
The camera is now shuffling between the inside of the Big Levein’s leg, and a variety of perishable goods nestled on various shelfs as Ms. Mitchell returns to the fruit aisle for her shift.
In the patrol car they begin to get rather concerned as to the nature of the video this woman seems to be watching as various expletives and the word leg are announced in isolation at a volume which captures their attention and those of a few early dog walkers passing by. At this stage of the morning and in a public place such activity is never to be condoned. They get out the patrol car and begin to creep closer in case an intervention is required.
Meanwhile The Big Levein is about to become the very definition of awkward as the baby is beginning to cry. Ms. Mitchell, realising that the baby has yet to have his morning feed, delights the ladies still with her by announcing that she shall now breast feed. The Big Levein is flummoxed. As the store is yet to open, between the pineapples and the offer on fresh strawberries a stool is arranged for Ms. Mitchell’s comfort. The Big Levein’s discomfort sees him abandon the bag perched looking straight at the entire event with Ms. Mitchell doing what millions of woman do every day and The Big Levein doing what millions of men do in response, squirm and abandon their post.
In the car park, a vivid and not very flattering description of The Big Levein is announced at full volume as The Budge compares him unfavourably to a woman’s breast but this is taken as all the evidence needed for an arrest. The two constables, hoping to preserve public decency, take into custody, The Budge.
At the same time, The Big Levein is to be found escaping out the back of the store, looking for his car so he can escape back to the Brechin Cottage. Ms. Mitchell in the meantime does what millions of mothers have done since time immemorial when abandoned by men and just gets on with it anyway…
Whilst the author asserts his right to this as an original tale, there no evidence that Craig Levein has ever changed a nappy, Pedro Martinez Losa’s ever been grumpy or Emma Mitchell has ever needed an unlikely hand with her new baby girl, Innes, unless you know differently, so this is clearly a work of fiction.
The fact is that during the week, Scotland squad member Emma Mitchell brought her baby Innes to the camp for the Netherland’s game and in a BBC interview it was suggested it had been “a “brilliant” addition according to team-mate Christie Murray.” Manager Pedro Martinez Losa also welcomed the new dynamic baby Innes has brought to the squad. “In some moments, it brings a different kind of energy having a little girl there,” he said in the same article. “We want to facilitate, and we want to open up opportunities and empower women and athletes, but we are here to do a job and that’s the first principle. It’s just about giving the best opportunity for Scotland to qualify and compete at the highest level – that means bringing Emma. So that should not be a restriction because there is a baby or not.” We did not reach out for comments from Ann Budge or Craig Levein for this article… but we imagine they will be supportive of such a lovely thing… Unless of course, you know differently…
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