Stay, little valentine, stay!

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [dullniece] b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. Subject: V Day.

Oysters, roses, shampoo, yada yada. Obv choccies no good viz. Dukan diet. I’ve tried it all, Niecey. Left-field ideas, please.

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: adultery@gmail.com. Subject: Re. V Day.

Fine Uncle, thanks for asking, and how are you?

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [dullniece] b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. Subject: Re.re. V Day.

Was rather hoping we could skip the social niceties. I’m *desperate* for original Valentine’s gift for E and you occasionally come up with bizarre ideas that might just work.

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: adultery@gmail.com.

You do know I can see your ‘cute’ bracketed nickname for me, don’t you? Why did you give her shampoo? Bit weird. Initial ideas off top of head: lingerie, shoes, diamond collar for that strange dog she carries about.

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [lovelyhelpfulniece]

Shampoo = champagne, pleb. Strange dog = Bonsai the chihuahua. Your ideas = zzzz. Whither thine imagination? I’m thinking of taking her somewhere interesting. Suggestions?

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [annoyinguncle]

Ok. Marrakesh? Hindu Kush? Legoland? Rights of Man?

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [lovelyhelpfulniece]

Done, done, done, the what?

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [annoyinguncle]

Just chucked in the last one to wake you after all the zzz’s. It’s a new pub here.

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [lovelyhelpfulniece]

Now actually you might be onto something, O child of my brother. Emmanuelle surprisingly keen on Lewes last visit.

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [annoyinguncle]

I am meant to be working, dear Unckie. The only thing she liked was Mimi clothes shop. That won’t keep her occupied for long; what, about three hours? You’d have time to take in your favourite event, Seedy Saturday.

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [cleverniece]

Now we’re cooking with gas Niecey! I’ve always had a very special time at that surprisingly-wholesome-given-its-name affair, LOL. It certainly would be left-field. And low-cost, appeasing my turbulent stock portfolio. Sweeten it with a stay in a welcoming yet cheap apartment and perhaps a trifling gee-gaw from one of your many jewellers, and Bob’s your Uncle. Well, no he’s not, I’m your Uncle. Well done, my fine ping-pong ball. Now, may I ask, what is your manfriend is getting YOU for Lover’s Day?

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [annoyinguncle]

We don’t do Valentine’s. We’re married.

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [sadpatheticniece]

What a dreadful indictment of today’s youth.

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [infuriatinguncle]

I’m ploughing through a rather dense report, Unc, and I’ve read the same sentence six times. Can I go now?

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [sadpatheticniece]

Certainly. I’d just like to return the favour, so ping over hubby’s email address and I’ll give him some ideas to spice up your stagnant romance.

Sender: b.miller@hotmail.co.uk. To: [infuriatinguncle]

I like all the things you dismissed at the start, esp chocolates and ‘shampoo.’

Sender: adultery@gmail.com. To: [niecehusband] j.miller@hotmail.co.uk

Excuse the intrusion, old thing, but heads up, as the youngies say: I just know that B’s PRAYING for family trip to Legoland for Valentine’s. And while you’re there, E and I are only too happy to housesit.

Beth Miller, published in Viva Lewes handbook, February 2013

Love that’s only slightly soiled

When Aging Lad popped round yesterday to unveil his plans for Valentine’s Day, it brought back vivid memories of his misadventure last year.

He’s in the habit of visiting occasionally, to get a fix of teeming family life. Thus he can reaffirm his chosen path of one-night stands and zero responsibility, and we can experience the violent envy that’s so bracingly testing to our morale.

Last year we assumed his February call was business as usual, so were staggered when he showed us a diamond engagement ring, saying he was going to propose to his most recent paramour, the waitress from Pizza Express. While we hauled our jaws back up off the floor, he went on, ‘Booked a table for Valentine’s at the Real Eating Company. Champagne, bended knee, the works.’

I pinned a screaming Thing Two to the floor to prevent him smashing his sister’s face in with a light sabre, the kind of standard parenting technique which would normally send Aging Lad half-way down the highway on that lonesome bachelor trail. But he didn’t even flinch.

‘Lad!’, wailed my Crèche-Manager (we job-share), appalled our friend was failing every beat up, broken down, vicarious-living Lewes husband, ‘What’s happened to you?’

Aging Lad humorously sat Thing One on top of a bookcase, then sauntered into the kitchen for a drink, forgetting she was there. ‘Getting old, guys’, he called over his shoulder, as Crèche-Manager caught her in an outstretched blanket, ‘You know how it is’.

On 15th February he was reluctant to talk, claiming an almighty hangover, but finally, we got the story. It had started well: Pizza Waitress looked lovely, the food was great, the champagne sparkling. So sparkling that Aging Lad drank most of it – ‘out of nerves’ he claimed. He then forgot his honourable intentions and reverted to type, flirting outrageously with the waitress serving their meal, rather than the one sitting opposite him.

Time was at the Real Eating Company you’d have been hard pushed to find a waitress to take your order, let alone one to flirt with, but things have changed. Lad teased, flattered, and leered; and when he finally went down on bended knee it was to look up the wrong waitress’s skirt. Pizza Waitress ran to the deli counter and grabbed what she thought was a wheel of cheese to crown him with, but luckily for our Lad it was a large buttermilk loaf and he got away with superficial crumb damage.

So yesterday we were surprised by his undimmed enthusiasm as he waved the engagement ring about again. ‘Second time lucky’, he grinned.

‘Who’s the unlucky girl now?’ I asked, hiding a traumatised Thing One behind my legs.

‘Oh’, he mumbled, ‘Waitress from the Real Eating Company.’ He was hazy about how they’d got together.

‘Where you taking her?’ asked Crèche-Manager.

‘Thought we’d try Artisan’, Aging Lad said airily, ‘I don’t know what the food’s like but they’ve got some cracking-looking staff.’

Beth Miller, 9th February 2009. Published in VivaLewes.com.