Christmas Grumble

Christmas comes but once a year
It’s a time of mortal fear
For we all worry and fret
Because there’s always someone
We forget

Consumerism reaches fever pitch
And nothing goes without a hitch
So much to do, it all seems a bind
As we all forget the reasons
For Christmas time

So here’s my poetic weak attempt
Where my opinion I try to vent
Now Christmas seems such a bummer
Like the Australians
Can’t we have it in the summer?

Bang! - Chapter 3

Have you ever noticed that you can never get a perfect picture when you try to freeze-frame a video? Well, that is the closest I can get to describing the end of my relationship with Isabelle. I’m breaking more rules here – I should be explaining everything in chronological order, numbered and indexed, shouldn’t I? I should tell you about where we met, how she took my breath away when I first caught sight of her at that swimming pool. But if I did that…well, where would the fun be then? Where would the intrigue, the puzzle be?

Isabelle and I had been going out so long that we no longer argued about our anniversary. We used to do this a lot. Was it from when I first saw you? Shall we count it from the first kiss? What about the first time I came inside you? Was it perhaps the first awkward date, when we went to see Ghostbusters II, and then went to Burger King and discussed how bad sequels always were? This sort of conversation started good humouredly, but was eventually undermined when I tried to mark the occasion in some way, for posterity. A bunch of flowers met with derision, “It’s not even the right date, you idiot! It’s next week!”. Ditto the box of chocolate, with love poems attached (I must add that it wasn’t one of MY poems, even I am not that sad). Ditto the on-air local radio request. In the end, we both gave up this pointless display, and didn’t mention it anymore. In company people would ask “So, how long has it been for you two?” and we would uniformly shrug our shoulders and embarrassingly mumble “TOO long.” or something equally lame, as if it were some kind of in-joke.

I can’t tell you when it all changed from being perfect to being less-than, it was one of those gradual creeping things that is, before you know it, on top of you. I was hurt by small things, I had become hyper-sensitive. The main bone of contention – she hadn’t taken me to meet her parents. Why? I knew that her family was well off and mine was not, but I couldn’t see how this was a problem. I was not a farm boy who had stolen the virtue of their innocent Jane-Austenlike daughter. In fact, I hadn’t even had a sniff of virtue for some time. I didn’t think I had too many embarrassing habits – I remembered to wash my hands before dinner, I didn’t swear in mixed company, I almost never trod in dogshit and walked it through someone’s hallway. What was her problem? We had been seeing each other for over a year, yet I had no idea what her parents were like. Suspicious.

Of course, when I finally invited myself up to the big house, it all became clear. I finally knew the reason I had been kept away from her family. Fifteen years old, with her hair in bunches, Philla came bounding down the steps of the grange to meet me. Suddenly I came into focus for her, and she stopped dead in her tracks. If she were in mid-jump she would’ve been left hanging in the air, like a cartoon Wile E. Coyote when he steps off a cliff. Her eyes widened as she looked at me, and that was it. The fuse had been lit, the countdown had started, and there was nothing to do but stand back and wait for it to happen.