Have you got lots of nice surprises for Mummy's birthday?
The Little Lady stood in front of me, an expectant smile on her face. No doubt waiting for good old Daddy-Bear to regale her with tales of flying balloons and fireworks all in the name of Mummy-Bear's birthday.
I looked at her as though she were the living embodiment of a wet fart.
Lots of surprises? Why of course I have!! Hahahhhahah hahhahhhhah hah hahhah!!
I slapped my thigh with hysterical glee and tried to avoid falling off of my chair from the laughter that was erupting from me like Pepsi from an exotic dancer's bahjina.
Oh, that's marvellous, Daddy! You are the best!
She clapped her hands together wildly and skipped out of the room in the way of little girls who have thoroughly awesome Daddies.
I watched her go with a wry grin.
Till she was out of sight.
Then I flobbed onto the floor and jammed my fist in my mouth to stifle the earth-shattering shriek of horror and panic that burst forth from my mouth.
Wasn't her birthday next month?!?! When did it shift to September? Was this September? Why didn't I know when in the year it was anymore?
Then it dawned on me. COVID and working from home. Apart from making me put on about forty stone and becoming some oxymoronically repulsively sexy obese person it had also made each day merge into the other until life was like one big long working day in the attic interspersed with the odd sleep and weekend beer.
This was a disaster.
According to my phone, her birthday was mere days away. Yet I had done nothing, bought nothing and organised nothing.
Would she fall for the old, Material things are so passe line? Nah, she was too Scottish for that old horseshit. Would she accept some homemade sauerkraut? Probably not.
Could I simply tell her that I had been too busy drinking and shagging like a madman? Hmm, she might expect to have been involved in some of that so that wouldn't wash.
Maybe I could tell her that the Night Horse had taken me again?
Best save that one.
I was all out of excuses.
There was nothing else for it. I was going to have to mask up and go to the shops and buy shit.
But I didn't want to mask up and go among the seething hordes? Nobody masked up anymore. Not since we were just about all jagged up to the nines with the vaccine. In fact, the only people who seemed to care about COVID these days were the vax deniers.
But me... I still had a reluctance to take off my mask and get jiggy with it among hordes of filthy fingered shoppers and their big moist virus-laden breathing.
But you know what, I couldn't let either of my ladies down.
Even if her birthday present was going to be self-isolation with a bottle or two of Gin. I would make it happen for her.
I stood and grabbed my mask from the mantelpiece.
I will get you a present baby...
I looked at myself in the mirror and struck a heroic pose.
Or die trying.
