"You're next then Matt," said Louise, laughing. Those words are never good news when I hear them. It's mostly at weddings from well-meaning people who are horribly confused about the difference between loneliness and singleness.
Louise was talking about the sick bug that's making its way around the team.
"Erm, no thank you," I said, officiously, nipping it in the bud. I genuinely don't want to be off sick, any more than I want to be sitting here hacking up a lung behind my monitor.
Meanwhile, it's World Book Day today. If you were out during the school run, you'll have noticed this because the streets were flooded with mini Oompah Loompahs and Disney Princesses clutching school bags. I don't remember this being a thing when I was young, but I certainly do approve.
It's a lot of pressure on parents though. I saw a thing about one 'quick-thinking' Dad who totally forgot, so decided to send his kids out clutching a toaster and a hairdryer.
Apparently, they were dressed as characters "from the Argos catalogue". I'm not rushing to join the tone of the article writer and declare him a 'genius', mostly because the kids in the photo looked both horrified and humiliated. That's not the work of a genius father, is it? That's the work of a thoughtless moron.
It isn't just children who ought to be fired into imagination though. There are generations now who never had World Book Day, and thought reading was for losers, never knowing the beautiful secret shared by the squares in the library.
Those people grew up without prose and poetry, choosing other things to flood their imagination. How did it work out for them? Where are they now?
Dressing their kids up as toasters and hairdryers I suppose.
Maybe all of us should make time to read a little more. I know I should. Recently, my rest nights and Screen-Free-Saturdays have been filled with moving and sorting. Perhaps we ought to switch off the garbage-machine we've angled all our sofas towards and dust off our copies of Huckleberry Finn or Pride and Prejudice, or whatever floats our imaginary boat... out across the waters of creativity, under the silvery word-painted moonlight.
Perhaps what I need is some sort of day when I can't do anything else, when I'm incapacitated. Some sort of... sick day.
Hmm. Or maybe I just need to be a bit more organised.
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