Lies Will Get You Nowhere

I have had the pleasure of my daughters’ company this weekend, which is always a never-ending whirl of picking up, tidying, nagging, cooking and answering difficult questions, as our two readers well know. And this weekend was no exception to the rule.

It started when Mr Parsnip was entertaining daughter #2 with the recently released DVD of Transformers on the television. As I pottered around, in a totally foul mood, having spent a day of hell at work where everything, but everything, conspired to go wrong on our website, I could hear her barrage of questions being fired at him. To his credit, he didn’t do as I do and threaten to place masking tape firmly over her mouth, but answered her calmly and informatively. She was in safe hands, so I knew that I could head off for a bath and wallow in my own self-pity, anger, and let my cares soak away with the bubbles.

The bath was idyllic. I had my candles lit, had performed all the incantations necessary to hex our dreadful web developers and was settling down to play out some confrontations in my head where I always won, got things sorted out and earned a massive pay rise. However, good things don’t always last, and I suddenly heard #1 snarl at #2, Don’t ask her! Leave her alone!

I sighed, wondering what was on its way.

#2: Mum?
Me: Yes?
#2: What is masturbation?
Me: ::thinks:: Oh Gawd, not again.
Me [after deep reflection] Well, it’s when you play around with your bits.
#2: Eeeeeewwww. That’s DISGUSTING…

It got rid of her. I discovered later that she had addressed the self-same question to Mr Parsnip who had bottled it completely and told her to ask her Mother. I guess I would have done the same if roles had been reversed, though…

Now, some of you may realise that I work for a large pharmaceutical group. We have pharmacies and depots across the UK but I work at the Head Office and am privy to all sorts of freebies, which come to the Marketing Department. We currently have a bit of a deal going on with Durex, the makers of all things mucky, who, in turn, have a deal going on with Anne Summers, which is basically a soft porn sex shop. In order to woo us, these suppliers send us samples to take home and use accordingly…

A kinky nurse’s uniform came in, replete with jaunty cap and stethoscope. It was in a size 10, and as I am the slimmest person there, and it fit, I was told to take it home and give it some use. Well, it was utterly hilarious, sent Mr Parsnip a strange shade of crimson, and a hiding place under lock and key was sought before the girls descended.

But I had forgotten to hide the cap…

As I shouted to the girls to lay the table for dinner from the kitchen, where Mr P and I were enjoying our evening banter when I annihilate him with big words, #2 came in wearing aforesaid cap and asked from where I had procured it.

After I had picked my jaw up from the floor and tried to re-pop my eyeballs back into their sockets, I stammered that it was a sample from work, out of a children’s gift set. #1, who is more on the ball than Frank Lampard, ripped the cap from #2’s head, checked it out and read the label, “Anne Summers”. Her face suddenly reflected mine [cf. eyes popping and jaw dropping]. The fact that she knew about Anne Summers disconcerted me somewhat, though, I must admit.

#1: ANNE SUMMERS? ANNE SUMMERS??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH ANNE SUMMERS STUFF???
Me: It’s just from work, that’s all. Nothing else. Stop it. Leave me alone. I am a really nice person, honestly…
#1 YOU’RE DISGUSTING!!!
Me: Look, you know I get lots of free stuff from work, and you know that because you have just been on the receiving end of perfumes and jewellery, so give over. I was given this because there is a bit of a collaboration between Anne Summers and Durex and us. That’s all. So stop.
#2: What’s so bad, Mum?
Me: Nothing’s bad at all, darling. Erm…erm…ahem…It’s just that some couples find dressing up a bit of a turn on and things get a little…erm…fun in the bedroom, shall we say…
#2: What do you mean?
Me: Well, it’s called role-playing.
#1: Like kinky Doctors and Nurses, you div! [snarled at #2]
#2: What’s role-playing?
Me: Well, it’s when you dress up and pretend to be somebody else and act, sort of…
#2: OK. I’m Doctor Who!
Me, Mr P, #1: Raucous Laughter…

We fell about laughing. It dissipated what was one of the stickiest situations I have ever been in. #2 couldn’t really understand our hilarity, and considered if we were laughing at her meanly. We weren’t: I know from my own stand-point, that my laughter was verging on the ‘relieved hysterical’, and I’m pretty sure Mr P felt the same…

Later that evening, #2 confronted Mr P about his family, whom she has not yet met. Her own paternal grandmother fell pregnant with her father outside of wedlock and as her cousins on that side are also born out of wedlock she is very familiar with the somewhat antiquated term, ‘bastard’ and uses it as frequently as possible, in context.

Mr P informed #2 that his mother had been proposed to by his father within a week of them knowing each other [which is so romantic it makes my heart leap!]. Her father, though, would not countenance this at all, as she was very young, and denied her the marriage until her 21st birthday. Consequently, they married a week after that momentous day.

For some odd reason, the fact that Mr P’s mother had got married at a young age rang warning bells in #2’s head and she rounded on him stating:
So! You’re a Bastard, then?

Well, after he, in turn, had picked his own jaw off the ground, he rejoindered that, No, he was not ‘a bastard’, and that his parents were quite happily ensconced in a legal wedding before he had become a twinkle in his father’s eye.

She looked disappointed. She mentioned the word a few more times and gave up, knowing that she was pushing it a bit too far. She knows it is used out of context as a swear word, but also knows damned well that she can get away with it when it is used correctly. We had a very subdued #2 who would have had great pleasure referring to Mr P as well as her cousins and her father as ‘a bastard’.

I, personally, call him this anyway, when he hasn’t cleaned the bath out after him, but that’s by the by…

I realise, in retrospect, that I need to get my house in order better so that I don’t have to face these uncomfortable moments. But I also realise that, if I did, what would I have to blog about?

I hope you can both rest on your laurels knowing that it is I who takes the rap…