7 May 21 – Is that your Dad?

Hi Everyone,

Hope you’re having another great week.

For this email please go to Spotify and search for incredibly sad violin music or, perhaps, that music Simon Bates used to play for Our Tune in the 70s. If you know what that music is you’ll empathize with this email.

I’m assuming Simon wore a flowery shirt and massive headphones, but can’t guarantee that’s 100% accurate.

So here’s the tragic series of events that lead to the death of my self-esteem and any semblance of holding on to my youth.

Last weekend, my wife and I went out for a meal and a couple of drinks. We got the last train back and there were a few drunks lying around, dribbling on the seats. We were minding our own business as always when one of them shouted over to my wife

Two things to note here: one, the drunk isn’t wearing a mask so if you recognise him report him and have him incarcerated for the rest of his days, and two, did you notice the barely contained smile beneath my wife’s mask. My wife is only 3 years younger than me, by the way.

Next day, I was sitting in the garden with me mam and she started looking at me closely and then she said ‘Do you moisturize? Because you’re starting to look like a leathery old football.’

As you can see, nothing could be further from the truth.

My stitching is further up to the left.

Final incident, we went to a friend’s house for a bbq. Halfway through the day, I noticed some styrofoam swords lying around in the garden and I love a good pretend sword fight. So I picked one up and called my friend’s 6-year-old son over for a battle to rival any seen in the history of the universe.

I said to him who shall we be – because you always need to get into character.

He said: ‘I’ll be Super Zombie Death Slayer.’ Wow, good name, I thought, he’s good at this. We fought like heroes for a couple of minutes then I thought I’d give him the opportunity to name his obviously worthy opponent.

‘Okay, Super Zombie Death Slayer,’ I said, ‘who can I be then?’

ANCIENT MAN.

To be absolutely honest with you, I was hoping for something better.

Defeated, I returned to the world of adults and ate some more burnt meat and drank more warm beer.

That’s it once again.

Just one last thing, and this is the final nail in the coffin, which is an appropriate metaphor.

I was at the supermarket checkout with my wife, buying the weekend’s supply of alcohol (not a small feat requiring two people for the heavy lifting). I went through as normal to start bagging, and my wife came through shortly afterward and the checkout person asked her to remove her mask to confirm her age. She’s 51.

If she gets any younger looking I may be arrested. Here’s me looking absolutely livid.

If that ever happened to me, which it won’t, I’d buy a megaphone and there’d be a series of 10 newsletters on the topic.