Carol’s Column

Every father deserves his day

IT'S all a plot. This Father's Day business.

I'm talking about the hallowed event that is making me get up at some ridiculous hour when even the sun is snuggling down in its double-thick, innerspring cloud, to wend my frozen-toed way to the kitchen.

To concoct for my dearest love — the one lying quietly above, rocking the foundations of the house with his eloquent snores, a special Father's Day breakfast.

One that will make him realise after 16 years of marriage, how lucky he is to be married to such a nimble, creative, beautiful, slim and attractive middle-aged wife.

It is unfortunate that on this morning of all mornings, I cannot find my upper set of false teeth and my bunions are aching.

It is also unfortunate that I have just stepped on a dropping made by Liquorice-the-labrador which makes my left foot smell not as fragrant as the right one.

Meanwhile, in each of their rooms, our various offspring are putting the finishing touches to their Father's Day gifts. With ribbons, lace, and colourful, suitably inscribed cards.

It is only after I have burnt the third slice of toast in the pop-up toaster with the built-in timer that has not worked since my dearest spouse bought it from a *Rejects Sale* at our local, friendly electrical shop with a shock in every appliance, that I realise something is wrong upstairs.

It is too quiet.

I put the kippers on to fry and add a little lemon juice to make them interesting for this very special day.

Then I trip upstairs and peep everywhere to see all is well.

Of course it is.

Outside it is pitch dark and even our resident Indian Mynahs are still asleep. Can you blame them?

The kids have wrapped their paternal offerings and have disappeared under mounds of blankets.

There's only one lunatic in this household I muse to myself as I make my way back to the kitchen and the fragrance of burning kippers.

And what did he give me for Mother's Day? A new bit for a power drill.

"But I don't have a power drill," I said as I kissed him enthusiastically, (we do everything enthusiastically in this family).

"You can borrow mine," he replied generously.

Last week I did a quick, on-the-spot survey. What are you giving your husband for Father's Day I asked my friends.

"A kick in the somewhere with hobnailed boots," said Margie who has been happily married for something like 20 years.

Betty has hired the new State Opera House in Pretoria along with a choir of 700 to sing "Happy Father's Day to you," to make this an occasion that Herbert will never forget.

Maureen muttered something about a one-way ticket to Siberia for her spouse and Marion has bought Boet a full-length fur to keep his knees warm at rugby.

It's all too much.

And the Lazars — what have we done for Father's Day. It wasn't easy.

What do you give a man who has everything?

"Bring on the dancing girls" said my oldest son who at the age of 15 has awakened to the outstanding charms of the opposite sex.

"Your father won't be able to stand the strain — after the age of 50 your heart is fragile."

My second son went out and bought him a book entitled *How to Photograph the Nude* which I thought was provocative.

And the third entered him for a 20km marathon fun run, which I thought was suggestive.

My only unmarried daughter bought him a chocolate sucker and wrote a card saying: "For you and me — sharing is fun — have a lick today".

Which left me.

After much deliberation I decided I'd give the father of the family something different. Something he'd never forget.

No more crass commercialism, cheap tinsel-type presents that turn Father's Day into a mockery.

I'd give him something unexpectedly unusual. Something warm, meaningful and relevant.

Me.

And that is why it is so bitterly cold this morning as I tiptoe about this house, frying kippers in a G-string with a dash of perfume on my wrists and glitter in my hair plus the gift label around my neck saying "I'm all yours".

That's the price you have to pay for being an individual in a world of flimflam.

I can't wait to see his face when he sees his Father's Day gift.

It's not every husband whose wife brings him a breakfast in bed of All-bran, fried kippers, bananas and tomatoes, with freshly-squeezed orange juice — doing a high-stepping can can and singing "Those were the Days" at 7am on a Sunday morning.

Happy Father's Day.

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