There are two words which, when placed together, are enough to strike the general populace to the core with debilitating fear, and make them want to burrow into the ground and lie prostrate in cold, enclosing earth. Nuclear war? Loose murderer? No. Dad’s birthday.
It comes once a year, though a generous proportion of the preceding months are consumed by this most alarming of events. Months in which wives watch Masterchef restlessly and without their usual tranquil regard of Gregg Wallace’s pate, and plate. When solitary and introverted teenagers press themselves even further into the corner of their bedroom wall so that they develop minor shoulder disfigurement. When dogs do an extra circuit of their sleeping spot before settling.
My dad’s birthday falls on the 16th of January, and lands sometime around noon. This means that it’s even more formidable due to depleted cash reserves from Christmas, depleted present ideas from Christmas, and depleted goodwill from Christmas.
For hours each day I racked my brain, surveyed shelves of books with unseeing eyes, drifted listlessly in and out of the automatic doors of the garden centre, blasting the hyacinths with intermittent cold air. But it was to no avail.
I heard on the radio earlier in the week (the panic is widespread) that if you need to buy something for a man, you buy a replacement for something he already has. Like a wife. And a leaf blower. And pants. But the problem is is that my dad doesn’t want you to buy him things, he wants him to buy him things because inevitably, what you buy him will be wrong for reasons you will never understand because you have never performed extensive comparative analysis of the sensory qualities of Spear & Jackson spade handles.
All things considered, Dad didn’t have a bad birthday. I mean, two thirds of our relatives forgot it but, hey…and he got a two-tiered draining rack…
Party hats off to Mum though for summarising the whole terrible fiasco of buying presents for men…
“I bought you this DVD in Oxfam because it has that woman on the front that you really like.”
“No, that’s the woman I really don’t like.” replied Dad.
“Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. I think the disk is cracked anyway.”
theredskyfactory 