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Friday 22 May 2015

Barbara Algie muses on Mother's Day


‘I’ve been sitting here ‘reflecting’ when I should actually have been writing.   After reading columns in ‘Sideswipe’ from Mums begging their offspring not to outdo each other by going overboard, I realised Mothers were doing it too – ‘reflecting’ that is -  on what they didn’t want.   What they failed to appreciate was that Mothers Day simply keeps the retail world revolving happily for another year.
  
So if you are a Mum what did your heart desire – and did you get it?   Was that mini chain saw from the DIY store (professionally giftwrapped of course) really a delightful surprise, or would you rather your children offered a few hours of their precious time to front up, armed with the necessary equipment to demolish the triffids that threaten to engulf you every time you step outside your back door? 
 
Florists had a field day operating Eftpos machines between artistically arranging expensive white orchids amongst twisted willow twigs. Lovely, of course, but would not a bunch of flowers from your daughter’s garden have pleased you even more?  
Did you enjoy being squeezed into a packed restaurant because your suggestion of a home-cooked meal (which you didn’t have to prepare or clear up afterwards) went down like a lead balloon?  
Did you wonder as you opened that Gift Voucher what fate and the family had dreamed up?   You may find you’ll be bungy jumping off the Skytower (meaning they think it’s time you did something daring) – taking up the offer of a season’s ticket to the local gym (meaning your bulges are bulging) – or having a complete facial makeover (meaning you’re definitely on the slippery downward slope when it comes to dealing with wrinkle control). 
 
Good old Greetings Card manufacturers – they’re the ones joyously counting their profits and I have some advice which may please them no end  for not everyone is a Mother.  Consider their increased revenue if there should, in addition to ‘Mothers Day’ and ‘Fathers Day’ be an ‘Others Day’.

   
OTHERS DAY

    There’s Fathers Day and Mothers Day, two days we celebrate  

    So why not have an ‘Others Day’ for those who didn’t mate?

    There’s lots of ‘Others’ out there who don’t quite fit the bill

    Some of them decided on the contraceptive pill

    If you should venture out this day at cafes you would find

    A host of other ‘Others’ of a very different kind

    There’s spinsters and bachelors, homosexuals and queens

    With not a sign of noisy kids from babes up to their teens

    Some of these other ‘Others’ only have a niece

    They chose a same sex partner to find their inner peace

    Though we may be a very strange and heterogeneous mixture

    I’d like to see an ‘Others Day’ become a yearly fixture.

Barbara Algie


 

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