Father's Day

The same old problem has come round once again. It's that time of the year, I fear. England isn't a good place to be in when facing this particular issue.

England, I have decided, is a country obsessed with greeting cards. And most of all, you need to leave them standing in your living room for at least three weeks before you can gently dust them, then remove them, read them one last time, get emotional, and brutally send them off to the recycling pile.

Whether your pet is having surgery, your nail broke or whether your bathtub is dirty, Clinton Cards will cater to your needs. Say it with a card. And to make life easier, they've already included a little message inside of it; all you need to do is sign; with love. No wonder the card market has won such praise and acclamation. You can make someone's day for the meagre price of £1.

The problem is, or my re-occurring problem is, that each country has its own Father's Day, Mother's Day, Leprechaun Day... and if I am not in the same country as the person concerned, how do I know when the day has come? How am I supposed to know when I should give a bone shaped card to my dog?

You see, this has bothered me all my life: I lived in Switzerland, went to school in France, my mother is American, and now I live in England. Which day is Mother's Day? Considering I'm utter crapola at maths, I wouldn't even be able to come up with my own date after calculating the median of the four dates on offer. I could have spoilt my mother and given her four cards on FOUR different occasions. But then that defies the point; you wouldn't want to make anyone feel too special too many times, it might just end up in a big headed-inflated ego issue. Let's not go there.

So, what am I to do?! Today is Father's Day, and once again, I am at a loss as to what to do.

Luckily, love isn't found in a greeting card. And luckily, my father knows I love him without ever having given him one. Phew. The only ones I have on my back now are the card industries, whom I continually cheat, by not contributing to their 1£ answer towards making someone's day.


By the way, I do believe in letting people know that they are special, even if they can't fit their heads out of the door anymore. It's a good way of kidnapping people who are leaving to greener pastures.