Spoilt Rotten

My Dear Fellow,

Today, Er Indoors and I met CP for lunch. You will be glad to hear she looked good, happier and with a bounce in her step that had been missing of late. But she pulled a face as she sat down, "I'm 50 today," she complained. "It's my birthday."

I had no idea! Er Indoors and I had organised to meet her today purely because it was one of the few free lunchtimes we have left. Fortunately I was able to give her an unintended birthday present in the form of two tickets to see David Sedaris in September. I had bought them back in December thinking, "I bet we fly out the effing day before," but not wanting to miss out on them. And of course we are flying out the effing day before.

The gift of prophecy.

Still, I was now delighted to be able to give something nice to CP. As you know, she is an integral part of the story of Er Indoors and I, but in addition is also one of the nicest, kindest, most generous and funniest people I've met.

Naturally, we got to talking about bums, willies and other sophisticated things.

It turns out that one of Er Indoors's best friends is overshadowed by her millionaire brother. How did he make his millions? He is a manufacturer of - ahem - adult items. Including one that is newly patented and "waterproof".

"Waterproof??" I echoed. "What else? Does it have Bluetooth?

I was joking. But then Er Indoors told me, "Oh yes, you can play music on it."

"Can you imagine?" I replied. "Oh darling. They're playing our song. It's a bit muffled, mind."

"Turn up the bass, love," said CP, issuing forth with her dirtiest laugh.

She is as sassy as ever. We talked about a meeting she had attended at Slack where the set up of the meeting room took most of the attendees aback. "The tables were set up in such a way that they CLEARLY resembled a giant willy and balls," she announced. She got out her phone and showed us a picture.

The table-ends were rounded and bulbous. And two of the smaller tables were connected to the larger table at the base. I was CRYING.

"Some people couldn't see it," CP complained. "What could I do?" she continued. "I sat down at the 'shaft'."

I was having trouble breathing by this point, but CP wasn't finished. "Then a bloke came in and sat right at the 'tip'," she said. "There was a point in the meeting where he announced he was 'just the mouthpiece' and I nearly lost it."

We told CP about how the lads are travelling to NZ in their pet-crates via the USA. She told us that one of her colleagues at Slack recently had a crisis when her son got stranded abroad, stuck at the airport trying to return from Spain.

"It turns out that he'd taken his cat and his ferret on holiday with him," said CP. "And although the airline flew them out with no issues, they were refusing the ferret until he bought it a more secure crate."

Er Indoors was confused. "Who takes their FERRET on holiday with them?" she asked.

"Who even HAS a ferret?" replied CP. She kind of has a point.

We chatted like this for two hours. Catching up and swapping silly stories and reminiscing about how we had all met, all of those years ago. About Dusty and Ripley and Montrose Terrace and being younger and dafter than we are now.

CP didn't really like it when I paid for her lunch and told her it was her birthday present. She doesn't like being older, although she looked really lovely today and younger than I've seen her for years. Anyway, CP will never get old. She's youthful inside, you can see it in her face and her smile and I just love her. We got big hugs as we waved her back to her office.

Afterward, I took Er Indoors to Louis Vuitton and let her go NUTS. There is no posh bag shop in Wellington, so I had told her that she was allowed to go bonkers one last time before we leave. She loved it in there. She was waited on by a nice Frenchman who handled all the bags with gloves and made Er Indoors feel like a princess.

In that same spirit, I then took Er Indoors to Harvey Nichols and let her loose in the cosmetics department. I stood guarding her posh bag purchases while she was attended to and treated like the lady she is. She looked so happy.

I took a blip in there because I was so amazed as to how COMPLICATED all this make-up stuff is. I mean LOOK at it all. How do you keep track of it? How do you know where it is supposed to GO? How on earth do you squish all this stuff on every time you go out to the big posh do? How do you not stick it in your EYEBALL?

I think I'd probably end up with make-up in my hair every time. It is a good thing I am not a lady.

There was a lot of chat and advice to Er Indoors from the cosmetics lady, covering all of the above. As a dude, I have to tell you that it was a bit boring from my point of view, but I held on to Er Indoors's purchases and pretended I was her personal manservant.

So I got to spend on two other people today. And yet I'm the one who feels like he has been spoilt rotten. I got to treat two of the best women I know, and there's no better feeling than that.

Parsones