MY wife had some devastating news: “I’ve been seduced in the middle of the night,” she gasped, excitedly.

I’d been away on business so she’d had the marital bed to herself. Naturally, I was alarmed. In fact, my blood turned to ice.

It had happened at three in the morning, she went on to explain.

And it was all quite steamy.

She hadn’t been able to sleep because she was having one of her hot flushes (she’s been having a lot of them just lately), so she decided she needed something to occupy her.

“I just couldn’t help myself,” she said. “It was just too good an offer to turn down.”

So what do women do when they’re having a hot flush in the early hours of the morning and can’t sleep? Yep, you’ve guessed it – they go shopping.

These days, of course, you can go shopping without getting out of bed.

She’d gone on her laptop and started to browse. They like that word, don’t they? Browse. They’re never going to buy anything. They’re just going to have a quick browse.

Anyway, she browsed her way onto Amazon and there it was – a nine-in-one steam cleaner for only £38.

I imagine she yelled “Yes! Yes!

Yes!” – When Harry Met Sally-style – as she wiped away the perspiration of her hot flush and keyed in her credit card details to bring the transaction to a fulfilling climax.

“It’ll be here tomorrow,” she told me, as if I were in the slightest bit interested. “I’ve wanted one for ages,” she added. “They’re supposed to be brilliant,” she went on.

“Lucy over the road’s got one.”

The nine-in-one steam cleaner duly arrived the next day and she got hot and bothered all over again as she unwrapped it. She couldn’t wait to get it upstairs to the bedroom.

“I’m going to do the shower in the en suite,” she announced.

Even when they don’t really care about something, dads have to quickly learn the knack of taking an interest. So, when I got home from work that night, I enquired how she’d got on with her nine-inone steam cleaner.

“Oh, it’s going back,” she replied, dismissively.

“Why? What’s wrong?” I asked, with mock concern.

“It lost all its stiffness after a few minutes,” she sighed.

Well, what a let-down, I thought to myself, realising that it wouldn’t be a good idea to smirk, for fear of bringing on another hot flush.

“It’s absolute rubbish,” she harumphed. “The steam just made all the bristles go limp. What’s the point of that?”

“Indeed,” I responded, in my best sympathetic voice. “I can see it’s very disappointing when you get seduced and it goes all floppy before you get going.”

Anyway, the moral of this story is: Don’t get prematurely over-excited.

Had my wife taken the time to read the the ‘comments’ section on Amazon, she’d have seen that several wives had already complained about a lack of stiffness at the crucial moment from the seductive nine-in-one steam cleaner.

THE THINGS DADS DO

SO there I was, on the train to London, and an attractive blonde girl opened the toilet door just as I was passing on the way to the buffet car for a coffee.

I waited in the corridor and she said: “Sorry, I just wanted to check my hair in the mirror before we get to London.”

“No problem,” I replied. “You’re allowed to do that.”

She promptly returned to her seat, satisfied that she looked presentable for the arrival into the capital.

As I was queueing to get off, 15 minutes later, I saw the blonde girl in front of me: “I think your hair looks lovely, by the way,” I told her with a friendly smile.

It was only when she looked at me in a funny way and didn’t answer that I realised it was a different blonde girl I’d never spoken to in my life.

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