And the pretty people smiled
While leaving the supermarket yesterday afternoon, attempting to push a metric ton of groceries towards the car-park while flanked by my other half and several of our tribe of little people, I passed a young couple.
I say “young”they were mid to late twenties. A walking page from a magazinewith perfect clothes, perfect hair, faultless skin, and toothpaste advert smiles. She was pregnant.
As they passed I found myself wondering if they would look quite so perfect a year down the road? How wouldthe arrival of a non-sleeping maniac that soils itself several times a day, and randomly projectile vomits impact on the imaginary catalogue home I imagined they live in?As we continued on home I recalled John Bishop (UK stand-up comedian) talking about the happy childless people in pubslaughing with their friends, and making spontaneous decisions about the rest of their day. You notice them when you arrive with your family, after the hour long struggle to leave the house for a “relaxing” meal out, and the need to get home before the kids get tired, cranky, or become bored and go nuclear on you in public.
I wondered if the young couple would realise theirentire life of doing what they wanted was about to come to an end?Before I could think much more about it I got swept up in throwing half the contents of the fridge away, packing the groceries into the cupboards in such a way that they might fall out on anybody fool enough to open them, making dinner that the kids would complain about, washing up for the fifth time, putting kids to bed amid protests and arguments, and washing clothes into the early hoursall of which conspired to erase all thoughts about the magazine couplefrom my mind. The thoughtreturned while standing on the touchline of the rugby pitch this morningwatching Miss 10 flatten small boys.
I scribbled an entrydown in the task list on my phone;“Write something about the pretty people”