Premature burial

Early Saturday morning and Daddy Shortlegs has his suit on: his funeral suit. He lumbers up the stairs from his ground floor bedroom, placing both feet on each step, transcending by a sideways rock from one stair to another. I sit in the study typing away oblivious to everything but the blare of my iPod.

He looms over me (difficult for him unless one is sitting) and his mouth forms the words ‘Where’s Rich?’

‘Out. Working. Why?’ I remove the ear plugs.

‘I thought we were going to the funeral.’

‘That’s on Thursday.’

‘Oh God! I thought we were going today.’ Annoyed grunts and muttering accompany the constantly shaking head. ‘What day is it, then?’

‘Saturday.’

‘Today?’

‘Yes, today it’s Saturday … and the funeral is on Thursday’

He wombles off muttering but it’s not long before he is back again with a piece of card in his wobbly hand. ‘See, Thursday 26^th April.’

‘Yes and today is Saturday’

‘What date?’

‘The 21^st today’

He shuffles away muttering again just to prove the point that I am personally responsible somehow for today being Saturday. I’m not sure what is upsetting him most – getting all dressed up with nowhere to go or missing out on a ham buffet.