A wee problem

This is where one of your offspring is planning a night out and they arrange with their friends to meet at your house so that they can drink your booze.

Usually, they begin to gather at around 7pm and book a taxi for 10.30pm, which gives them three and a half hours to work their way through whatever alcohol you happen to have.

Jack – our third born – had planned one such pre-drinks gathering at our house last week and he and his mates were enjoying the evening summer warmth in the back garden, surrounded by empty beer bottles.

These are generally young men from our village and we’ve known them since they were in pushchairs. Really nice boys – but very thirsty.

With the taxi due any minute, my wife, who’d had a couple of glasses of wine herself, made her way out to the garden, in her dressing gown, to have a chat with the boys. She began with the usual kind of pleasantries, such as: what stage were they at with their studies; what career plans were they considering; and how were their parents.

She then moved on to the distinctly less cordial subject of the unwelcome cats which keep coming into our garden. This is a big issue for my wife because the cats keep killing birds, as well as leaving their droppings on the lawn.

Whenever she spies a cat from the kitchen window she has been known to run outside, making a kind of hissing sound that Thomas the Tank Engine could only aspire to, or emitting an ear-splitting screech while doing what I think might be a Cherokee war dance. The cats leg it in sheer terror. Well, who wouldn’t?

Anyway, I actually heard her say to the pre-drinks brigade: “Look boys, before you go, do you think you could all have a wee in the garden – preferably one in each corner, near the fence?”

I couldn’t quite believe my ears. Having had to live with these nine or ten young men drinking my beer, I was now having to try to come to terms with my wife inviting them to urinate in my garden. Why not just cut out the middle man and empty my bottles of San Miguel directly onto the petunias?

“You can’t go round telling young men to wee in our garden,” I told her, pointing out that we have two perfectly good toilets, one downstairs and one upstairs.

She didn’t appear to appreciate why I was so alarmed: “Oh, stop fussing, it’s a well-known fact that cats don’t like the aroma of human male urine,” she replied.

To be absolutely fair to her, we haven’t had any cats in our garden for a week.

And, what’s more, I’ve got a feeling that the boys might not be back in too much of a hurry either.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANKS to my old friend Nigel Dowson, of Cockfield, who passed on the tale about a little lad he knows called Tommy.

Tommy, eight, was asked what his favourite subject was at school.

“English,” replied Tommy.

“Why do you like English?” he was asked.

“Because when I finish, I go home,” said Tommy.

The following week, his Nan asked him what he wanted to do when he left school.

“A bin man,” declared Tommy.

“Really? And why’s that?” asked his Nan.

“Cos they only work on a Thursday,” said Tommy.

MARTIN Wood, of Darlington, remembered the time son Sam, aged five, arrived his in parents’ bedroom, saying he’d had an amazing dream.

“What happened?” asked Martin.

“Well, you know, you were in it!” came the reply.

BECKY Ketley, of Aycliffe, has been in touch about her little boy Daniel’s take on the delicate subject of bereavement.

“Mam, you know Owen’s Grandad died, don’t you?” Daniel asked while the family were having dinner.

Becky nodded and Daniel continued: “I think my Grandad will die.”

“Everyone dies one day, son,” explained Becky. “Will you be sad when Grandad dies?”

Quick as a flash, Daniel replied: “No, but how will Nana be able to take us to McDonald’s because she can’t drive?”