The Slippery Slope...

Some years back, dear E purchased her darling Papa a gift for Father's Day. But surely, you protest, you must mean that each and every year she makes such due offering upon the ancestral altar?

Well, yes, of course she does to the extent that any child in this land troubles themselves with these twin artificial occasions of supposed love-fest to the parent - Mothering Sunday and, its complementary, the aforementioned Father's Day. That extent being no more, generally, than the opposing parent actually shelling out for card and present, which is then handed gratis to the child with the suitable and stern reminder: "You know what tomorrow is, so be nice to him/her throughout the day. No arguing or tantrums please, and here's what you're giving him/her in token of your great fondness and, above all, gratitude."

I hope - for it is certainly not my intention - that I am not painting a picture of an unfond or indeed ungrateful off-spring, for E most certainly is far from being that. What really, though, one is saying is that children are by-and-large untouched by the unreality of it all. Why indeed should they be bothered with the one day per year chosen at random by the marketeers, only keen to make a few bucks more for card, gift and - above all - flower shops?

If then out of the mouth of these babes comes - "But Dad, you know I love you shedloads all the time and, also, fully acknowledge that without ready access to your ever-open wallet I'd not be able to keep myself in the manner to which I am most certainly becoming accustomed. Must I really then cadge some more cash simply to spend it on making that very point?" - you can see they have a shrewd and compelling point. (One is so reminded of the old seminary jest oft heard: "Lend us a fiver and I'll buy you a pint.")

That then being the rationale norm, it came, as you can imagine, as somewhat of a great surprise that, in this year in question, E actually showed up clutching a parcel she had bought entirely with her very own money and quite on the QT, H knowing nothing about it at all.

"Here you are Pa," she beamed. "Saw this and at once thought of you. Happy Father's Day and when you've got a minute could you fix my stereo for me it's gone on the blink? I don't mind if it's not before you give me a lift to the stables. Up to you." (So ever wonderful these children eh? Human all too human, which is quite how it should be.)

And so what was this special gift that E had alighted-on as spot-on for good self? None other than a seriously fine pair of slippers! Well, that of course was cause of merry mirth in itself. Poor old geezer, getting on in years, nothing like some cosy indoor footwear to go with the recently taken-up pipe.

That was the jest really, as indeed yes pipe-smoking had become the new boy-toy for the man: racks of finest Irish pipes filled to the brim with tobaccos from Denmark to the Balkans and back. Even a longish churchwarden pipe to complete the image of eternal rural rectitude and rapidly approaching dotage. (Please though, do not overlook the wilfully intended post-modernist irony, lest you seriously believe I would have myself writ-off so.)

These slippers then were, indeed, just the job to complete the fun. Better than that even, they were not just ordinary slippers they were... Well no, they did not come from that particular emporium at all. Far too wacky for that place. On them - on each one naturally - was embroidered the very lifelike image of the Dad of all Dads, none other than Homer Simpson himself with the proud accompanying legend - again on each slipper of course - 'Best Dad in the House.'

No finer compliment, no greater tribute, could be sought or given. How happy - nay proud - was I to have confirmed that one's own child could be quite as ironic as her father. Nature or nurture to credit? Now there's an interesting thought, a two-pipe problem if ever there were one. Does one inherit the delightful ironic sense from the parental genes or does one acquire it through familial example and experience?

Let us though leave that to the philosophers. If E does irony then that is totally splendid whatsoever the cause. Why though, now this quiet Sunday evening, does one recall that happy day and moment? 'Tis the sad truth that in this Vale of Tears we call life, nothing lasts forever and that includes certain slippers, especially those worn daily these past five years and more. Frayed, decayed even, the time came they had to be retired.

Preserved as a memento of a good jest, but consigned in due season to the attic lumber room, no longer wearable or to be worn. Worn down and now worn out. Bit like the wearer really. No, not really, only kidding. New slippers for old have been bought today: plain black leather with suitable fluffy lining. Eminently suitable and practicable for the purpose, but utterly lacking in irony sadly. Nothing funny about a fellow buying his own slippers that I can see.