You can have whatever you want if you go to sleep on your own
Dear Diary, I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while, I’ve been very busy. Ha! I used to start pretty much every diary entry like this when I was 11. And I mean, for fucks sake, what was I so busy with? The fucking Babysitters’ Club? Sweet Valley Fucking High? Milo? (Probably Milo.)
In all honesty though, I’ve been busy. To give you an idea, this was the email I sent to my mum while I thought she was on holiday in Phuket:
Everything's fine. Here's the news:
Nan had a haircut today. She's very pleased with it and got home just before the rain started. She’s just put the bins out.
Grandad's fine, he's just had his tea.
Frankie now goes to sleep on his own, in his own bed.
Alice no longer goes to sleep on her own, in her own bed.
Ben, Frankie and Alice all got EXCELLENT school reports. I’m as surprised as you are.
Frankie was back at the hospital today and he's fine. The new hospital is very nice but totally chaotic and nobody knows where to go, including the doctors and nurses. Also, the automated system is very fancy but totally ineffective.
DON'T give Ben $100 when you see him. We've put it towards a new scooter. He'll try and tell you that he's still owed it, but he's NOT.
THAT'S ALL.
In addition to the exciting news I told my mum, I had a two-day migraine. That was shit. And time-consuming. But mainly shit. I ran out of my magic migraine tablets so was forced to swallow anything vaguely promising a modicum of pain relief, which meant, of course, that I was off my fucking tits for a solid 48 hours. A 48 hours, I should add, that I attempted to work. This resulted, I’m sorry to say, in me telling a client that I spat in her glass of water. I don’t know why. I didn’t spit in her glass of water. She just said, “Oh, this water tastes weird,” and I replied: “That’s because I spat in it.” She looked so confused.
As it turns out, my parents weren’t in Phuket last week. They were in Bali. I only figured this out when they texted to say that THE VOLCANO HAS ERUPTED AND WE’RE STUCK IN BALI. And then I was, like, oh fuck, my parents are not in Phuket, they’re in Bali. They’re stuck in Bali. Their flight got cancelled along with every flight into and out of Bali, and – when my dad announced that he’d run out of his staying-alive tablets – we were all, like, OH FUCK, capital letters. And then – god knows how, but THEN – they managed to get on the one airline game enough to through a steaming volcanic eruption, and got home SECONDS before the airport was shut for the foreseeable. That is good luck.
Here’s another piece of good luck that came our way recently: our coffee machine broke (bad luck) so we bought another one (good luck) but it blew up almost instantly (bad luck) but the nice lady at the coffee-machine shop replaced it without complaint (good luck). It’s weird that a brand-new, not-cheap coffee machine blew almost instantly, am I right? And yes, it was weird. We brought the coffee machine home from the coffee-machine shop, and Paul said to me, “Tell you what, you nip to the shops to get bits for tea, and I’ll have a nice coffee waiting for you when you get back.” Exciting, no? Except when I got back, there was no coffee, just a blown-up coffee machine. “It just stopped working!” Paul exclaimed, with a look of blue-eyed, middle-aged innocence. “One second it was on, the next it was off!” It was decided, as such, that I would take the coffee machine back to the coffee-machine shop the next morning. Paul told me to tell the coffee-machine-shop lady that it simply STOPPED WORKING. He didn’t do anything. He was quite clear about that. The coffee machine’s lack of power had absolutely nothing to do with him. At all. Nada. Nothing.
“Hello!” I said the next morning, at the coffee-machine shop. “This coffee machine doesn’t work!”
“Did you do anything to it?”
“Nope! It just will not turn on!”
“Have you made a coffee with it?”
“Oh no, madam. No coffees have been made with this machine, on account of it NOT TURNING ON.”
“Well,” she replied. “That is interesting, because there are ground coffee beans in the machine, and evidence of a coffee having been made.”
“Oh.”
“Have you made a coffee with a machine?”
“I was at the shops getting bits for tea.”
“Has someone else made a coffee?”
“I believe someone else might have made a coffee.”
{I love my husband dearly, but at this point, I did not.}
When Paul got home from work, I recounted my conversation with the coffee-machine-shop lady.
“And it’s WEIRD,” I said, “because there was CLEAR EVIDENCE OF A COFFEE HAVING BEEN MADE.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I made a coffee.”
“Did you blow the machine up?”
“No.”
“Sir, I will repeat my question. Did you blow the coffee machine up, and make your long-suffering wife fib to a coffee-machine-shop lady the following day?”
“Maybe.”
BAD HUSBAND. SILLY WIFE. EXCELLENT COFFEE-MACHINE-SHOP LADY.
As previously mentioned, Frankie now goes to sleep on his own, his own bed. For the last SIX MONTHS, or thereabouts, someone (Paul) has had to lie with Frankie in bed until he (Frankie) (although more often than not Paul too) fell asleep. This started after Ben showed Frankie IT, and Frankie developed a not-unreasonable fear of killer clowns.
The last six months have been a fucking nightmare. Lying with a kid until they fall asleep is torturous, time-consuming and fucking annoying. In desperation, we said to Frankie: “YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER YOU WANT IF YOU GO TO BED ON YOUR OWN.” “An iPad,” he replied, without hesitation. “I want an iPad.” “Done,” we said. “You sleep on your own, we’ll buy you an iPad,” thinking smugly that there was no fucking way this kid was going to be able to sleep on his own.
Except, of course, he did, the little sod. Kids are little sods (with iPads).