The Bottom Line

by Sandra Crook

“Ohhh she’s got a lovely bottom... set of teeth.”

The raucous voices sang out behind us, as my best mate and I hovered on the touchline at the football match that Sunday afternoon.

My brother’s team, the Nelson Nomads, were playing another pub team, the Wheatsheaf Warriors, and about thirty or so spectators were getting ridiculously enthusiastic about the proceedings. My Dad, the team coach for Nomads, was buzzing up and down the pitch bellowing instructions at his men, whilst my brother, today playing centre forward, rolled his eyes in exasperation and embarrassment at his antics.

“Ohhh she’s got a lovely bottom... set of teeth.”

The refrain rang out again, to the tune of ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain” but with just that slightly pregnant pause after the word ‘bottom’, and my friend Elaine giggled with delight.

Frankly, I was puzzled. If I had a backside like Elaine’s I certainly wouldn’t like anyone drawing attention to it. And I certainly wouldn’t be wearing tight jeans with a short t-shirt. I’d have something a lot longer to cover the ample derriere, probably a shroud or something.

Most of us spent a lot of time looking over our shoulders in the mirror, turning this way and that, framing that perennial question — ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ Everyone except Elaine that is.

Elaine, whose bum really did look big in everything, never gave it a second thought.

And not only was Elaine’s bum big, it hung low too. The rest of us all wanted high, pert, tight little bums, and to this end we relentlessly pounded the machines at the local gym and spent hours on the floor mats flexing, tightening, squeezing.

Everyone except Elaine, who wouldn’t be seen dead near a gym.

But nevertheless, as I’d observed before, what women strove to achieve was not always what men yearned to get a grip of.

So here we were again, with yet another bunch of yobbos hanging around behind us, positively drooling over Elaine’s low-slung, protruding backside, whilst my high, tight little ass couldn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“Ohhh, she’s got a...” The refrain was cut off in full flow, and turning round I saw my Dad sitting on top of the main protagonist, punching him in the nose. Blood and bone was everywhere.

My brother and a couple of his mates sped off the pitch to separate this fifty-five year old bloke who was knocking seven shades of... well, whatever, out of this twenty-three year old.

“You don’t speak about my daughter like that, understand???” bellowed my father, struggling to get back at the ashen-faced younger man now holding a blood-stained handkerchief to his swollen nose.

My mortification was complete.

It wasn’t enough to know the truth, now I had to say it, before Dad’s victim or anyone else with eyes in their head could say it.

I went over to my Dad and pulled at his arm. My cheeks were blazing. “It wasn’t me they were singing about, Dad.”