I am a terrible human, and a failure as a wife and mother.
My husband, as we will see, is not. Addicted to buying weird stuff, yes, but fundamentally a Good Person.
I digress.
I’m referring, of course, to the yearly pain in my soul which accompanies the realisation, some time late in the afternoon of November 30th, that yet again I have singularly failed to prepare for the advent of, well, advent. In less than ten hours my children will be expecting to prise open a tiny door and receive chocolate before breakfast.
Are there any advent calendars left in the shops? No. No there are not.
Actually, there are a few battered ones right at the back of the bottom shelf in Tesco, where yesterday I sprint down the aisles like a woman possessed. I am ready to fight each and every last person who might be attempting the same last-minute shop. Take the chocolate from my babies mouths, would you? I think not. I elbow my way through the crowds. I pointedly death-stare every last person not wearing a mask, just for an added seasonal goodwill. (There’s nothing like a global pandemic to TRULY bring out that festive spirit I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE THROAT SCIENCE-DENIERS etc.) It turns out that the last two advent calendars in the shop are 1. the price of a family flight to Switzerland (Lindor), and 2. a brain-meltingly un-festive shade of neon orange with half the doors suspiciously already semi-open (Reece’s pieces).
Now when the children were tiny, I used to shun chocolate calendars. Getting tiny people fed and out the house at breakfast time is traumatic enough without having to explain why ‘it’s only one a day for 24 days, fools’ every single day for 24 days. But somewhere in the past I must have cracked, and now December breakfast includes a starter of shit chocolate, followed by a dessert of me just clearing up a trail of miniscule shreds of silver foil from various rooms in the house.
Anyway, even despite the frankly hideous calendars this year, I was feeling quite pleased with myself when I revealed them to Lee, smugly, that evening. “Well, don’t worry…I (emphasis added) got the children advent calendars today,” I casually announced, finishing the last of the tidying up after dinner. I am a saint. A parent-saint. There is nothing I would not do for my children. God they’re lucky to have me. I’ve even done the washing up too.
Lee is staring at me, a strange look on his face.
“What?”
He continues to stare.
“I got them advent calendars! For tomorrow. I remembered…” the implication here being that he, almost certainly, had not. “I got the very last two in the shop!”
He looks like a kicked puppy.
“Oh and by the way, there’s a giant box over there for you. It was delivered earlier. It’s really heavy, so god knows what’s in it.”
Whereby Lee mournfully asks in the tiny voice of a wronged child why I hadn’t thought to get HIM an advent calendar?
I’ll be honest - it hadn’t even occurred to me. He’s a grown adult. Surely he doesn’t care about things like that? He doesn’t need chocolate for breakfast, really? Our adult December breakfasts are always reassuringly like those the rest of the year, which is to say eaten at top speed whilst shouting ‘PUT YOUR BLOODY SHOES ON’ and pouring coffee directly into our eyeballs. I would not expect him to buy me an advent calendar. What’s his problem?
We discuss my thoughtlessness further, as he lifts the enormous square package addressed to him from the doorway, bracing a little against its heft, and makes his way across the kitchen to me. “I’ve no idea what this is though” he says, as he begins to prise open the box, pausing when the contents become visible.
“Oh. Well.” he looks up. “I got this for you…”
Between us, we wrestle out an equally enormous inner box. It’s about the size of a rabbit hutch. It has 24 neatly perforated doors on the side. It’s bright yellow. It’s an advent calendar. I can have one of the contents each day. With my own breakfast.
The contents are 24 cans of flavoured, alcoholic, Mike’s Hard Seltzer.
Presumably, the intended use is to pour one on your cornflakes each morning, because nothing says ‘festive’ like cirrhosis of the liver, right? It turns out Lee has absolutely no recollection of having ordered this thoughtful gift for me. It’s possible that it happened whilst already under the influence of 24 cans of Mike’s Hard Seltzer.
Anyway, like I said, I am a terrible human. And Lee is the only member of our household without an advent calendar. Merry pissing Christmas…
What’s jolly this week?
Well it’s been an AGE since the last newsletter, but a lot’s been going on. My youngest child had covid, (which was luckily quite mild and over after about 48 hours) which meant ten days where he completed watching almost every episode of The Simpsons and played video games for about 15 hours a day. I spent these ten days convinced that every single feeling in my body was the beginnings of Covid; I went nowhere, did nothing and generally felt pretty bloody miserable. By some miracle, none of the rest of us got it though, to which I say - GET YOUR VACCINE.
Anyway, it meant I was constantly on the lookout for things to cheer me up, so please have the benefit of these enjoyable links if you too need a laugh today:
I weirdly missed the routine of the school run while we were stuck at home, and so had a lot of time for this mum’s incredible trolling of her own offspring.
This audio of French and Saunders recreating an interview with Madonna is absolute pure joy. Their giggling tipped me over the edge.
What’s that you say? You want deadpan Icelandic humour and a brilliant skewering of recent innovations in the land of social media? Et Voila.
Not particularly laugh out loud, but a real good build of some seriously very-like-mine dance moves here. WOAAAAAAAAAAAH!
This goat versus golden eagle blew my tiny mind. I sometimes wonder whether my cat could take a toddler. This just reinforces that belief.
I’ve saved the best until last. This incredible video actually made me weep real big wet tears of joy for AT LEAST three days. I just could not stop watching it. It’s possibly the funniest thing I have ever looked at with my eyes, and once you’ve seen it it will change the way you relate to the people around you forever, and to them, I apologise…
By way of a slight anticlimax for everyone who clicks that last link, I too did a slightly amusing thing by writing this piece which was published on satirical news website Newsthump the other week. Can you relate?
That’s all for this week, toodleoo!
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Who am I anyway?
I'm Lindsay. Bit of a dickhead, freelance writer for money, author of And Other Idiots and other internet shite for kicks. This newsletter will be a short story of some idiotic exploits from quite close to home, for no other reason than to make you smile every two weeks. Exactly how much shit can one man buy on Ebay? I intend to find out.
Find me on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook too if that’s your bag. Made you laugh? I don’t get paid to write this, but you can show your appreciation and buy me a coffee. Or commission me to write something with less swearing for you business? I’m nothing if not versatile. Are you a literary agent? I’m working on a book along these lines too - can I send you my proposal?
Genius. I block delete 100 emails a day, 50 of which I have unwisely subscribed to, but, oh! The quiver of joy when I see yours arrive. Thank you. Merry pissing Christmas to you, too.