Carol’s Column

Happy Father's Day to you

"DOES Father's Day mean we choose a new father?" asked my only, unmarried daughter through the gap in her two front teeth, spilling the orange juice on the newly-wiped kitchen floor.

I thought of the sleeping mound directly overhead.

Not that it was difficult. His snores wafted through the down-drain pipe from the bathroom en suite and en route to the greater sewerage plan of inner Johannesburg. Exiting near the kitchen window.

My mind boggled.

I mean, imagine a shop that sold new fathers for a reasonable price — or even better, offered trade-ins on the old models.

"I say, I think I'll take the rather rich, goodlooking one with the flat belly and a dimple — the one in the corner."

"Sorry Madam, he's been put aside. Perhaps Modam would like to choose another."

"Mommy, why are you giggling?" asked my daughter, an astute observer of human behavioural responses.

"I was thinking about your father," I replied, tucking my double chin into my candlewick dressing gown.

text cut off in photograph when you first met Daddy," remarked my daughter curiously.

"Ah yes. I remembered those early days well.

He'd picked me up at the local hamburger hut. While passing the tomato sauce, he commented on my physical beauty.

"You have a long neck," he'd remarked.

I'd preened myself. "Like a swan?" I'd blushed.

"What's wrong with a camel?" he replied.

"It was love at first sight," I told my daughter of the wide eyes and apple cheeks.

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She pondered on the problem. "When I grow up, I want to marry Daddy," said Nicky, flicking her left pigtail into the poached egg on toast.

"He's the best father I ever had."

"True," I murmured. "But you can't marry him."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I got him first."

And that disposed of Oedipus, incest and other such topics in one fell swoop.

The early morning pre-breakfast peace was shattered by the arrival of the scrumhalf, the lock forward and the flying goalie.

With customary grace, they clomped clumsily to the table, almost broke the chairs as they lunged downwards towards a sedentary position and made a grab for the rice crispies ignoring the more nutritious and functional All-bran.

"We've got to do something special for Father's Day," said the oldest scion of the tribe, brandishing his fork in my direction and missing my left eyeball by a hairbreath of a prod.

Ralph nodded his head. "He's the only father we have — which is something."

True, I thought to myself. What other father would patiently explain maths calculus after a hard day's work, watch rugby on a frost-bitten text cut off in photograph

"Daddy's the best!" said Jamie, his mouth full of food. "He never shouts at me."

OK, so we're on a I-like-daddy kick today I muttered as I attacked the washing machine with a pile of three-week-old washing.

"Daddy deserves the best," said Barry thoughtfully. "Perhaps we should get him two new ones in place of Ma. For her age we could get two 18-year-olds.

"I heard Daddy telling Uncle Boet he thought that would be fun."

This was the moment of truth.

"Your father barely copes with one 36-year-old," I growled, eyes flashing and nostrils twitching.

"Well, why don't we get Daddy a pair of socks?" said Ralph the diplomat.

They'd got the message.

For a moment there was a meditative silence.

However, in time of stress, let it not be said the Lazars are unimaginative.

Suggestions flew.

"What about flying lessons?" this from Barry.

An image of my bespectacled-spouse, dashing, in goggles, fitted flying suit and aluminium boots (for lightness), sprang to mind.

The picture didn't fit.

"It's dangerous," I said.

"What about scuba-diving lessons?" Jamie's suggestion.

Flippered and encased in drip-dry rubber, clutching a spear gun and chased by a Great White shark, my husband swum before me.

"Too dangerous," I said.

"What about hang-gliding?" Ralph's contribution.

Bat-like, with wings flapping and billowing in the breeze, I saw my husband leap off a great cliff. As he jumped, the wind dropped.

□ □ □

"No, much too dangerous." I shuddered.

"Shooting lessons?" from Nicky.

Again an image flashed across my brain. My spouse, in khaki, with pith helmet, knee-length anti-snake bite boots and rifle, stalked across the veld.

When suddenly, from behind a thick bush, jumped a fierce and snarling lion.

Then, disaster, as he fired, the rifle the wrong way round.

"Definitely no — much too dangerous."

The kids looked at me. Then Barry spoke.

"The trouble with you Ma," he said, "Is that you are stifling Daddy.

"He has a spirit of adventure, a sense of danger. You're turning him into a little grey man who leads a little grey life."

They could be right, I admitted to myself as I placed the toast (without butter for high cholesterol) on the plate, poured a cup of coffee without milk (to keep him slim) and no sugar (in case of high blood pressure).

Every man needs stimulation and excitement in his life.

I whipped off the candlewick gown, jumped into my black-lace honeymoon nightie, sprinkled Chanel on my earlobes and substituted champagne for the coffee.

Then wiggled wickedly to my man's bedside.

And shook him.

He opened an eye, And shut it quickly.

"Happy Father's Day," I cooed through my femme fatale flame-red lips.

The man with the spirit of adventure and the sense of danger, spoke: "Why the hang don't you let me sleep? he said, and rolled over.

Well, you can't win them all.

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