The completely unlucky aspect of today’s date escaped me to some degree. Apart from when I was on the train at nine o’clock this morning and awoken by a reminder on my phone. Today is my nephew James’s birthday. Oh shit! Its James’s birthday! My sister never forgets Emily’s birthday and here I was forgetting James’s birthday!
James is thirteen today. Thirteen! How did he get so old? I remember playing football with him and him insisting on using his Teletubbies football, I cannot see that happening again. Especially not when I forget his birthday! I needed a plan.
When I got to Leeds, I went in search of an outlet selling blank cassettes. How could a thirteen year old not love opening some blank cassettes to record his favourite pop tunes from the hit parade to play on his Walkman? I couldn’t find a branch of Our Price anywhere, but I did find a card shop. I bought a card for a three year old and wrote a number one in front, and changed the wording inside from three to thirteen. Surely, he would see my amazing talent for comedy there.
My mate Chris, who goes out with Emily’s half sister Kim, was meeting me from Redcar train station, so I got him to drop me off at my sister’s house so I could hand deliver the card. The only person at home was Dominic, my future brother in law.
“I thought I’d deliver his card personally as I was in the area today, I didn’t really want to post it the way things are going and I thought it would be a good excuse to see Mary and the baby. I bet James thought I’d forgotten him eh, eh?”
Fuck me I am good at this shit!
