Father's Day

OK, before we begin, let's do a little maths.
If A=the juicy yumminess of prunes, and B=their well-known effect on the dietary fibre scale, assume that T=no freakin' common sense whatsoever. Then if T eats an entire bag of Prunes, P, with high A and B indices on the Prunosity scale, solve for the Fuckwititude of T...

Anyone?
Well, if you said MF, meaning the maximum allowable fuckwititude while still being able to wipe oneself, congratulations - gold stars to you all.

All of which is a long-winded way of explaining what I did to myself last night. I practically turned myself inside out like a balloon animal, further isolating myself from my folks and all other civilised society. The ridiculous upside of which is that this morning, on a different bathroom scales, I weighed in at 18 stone 12-13 (flashing between the two). This of course doesn't count in any way. Still, was a positive side to the gastric hell of last night.

Today, as you all already know, is Father's Day (at least it is here in the UK). My grumpy self has, as predicted, buggered off back to the depths of my soul, where I keep him lashed to a damp wall and regularly whipped. Today has been filled with a couple more bits of furniture-moving - including the dismantling of a Welsh dresser and a game of Tetris with sofas. It's also included a traditional Sunday dinner, which turned me positively lupine with carnivorous lust, and a little bit of Jeffrey Archer....which didn't.

Last night we were all sitting around at the end of the night, and since my mother's also dieting, d's a foodie who's recently lost a lot of weight, and my dad's also a diabetic, talk turned to diet and food. We gave my dad a couple of Rich Tea biscuits, and I had a craving that was insanely strong. Yep, I now sniff biscuit barrels too. 
"D'you want one...erm...Weight Watchers biscuit?" my mother asked.
I explained that my brain didn't work like that, that I didn't want one of anything - that I wanted a whole sleeve of Rich Tea, with either a big mug of milk or a big mug of tea, dunking four at a time, so on the one end they were soggy and fit to drop, and on the other, still strong enough to support the four tiers, for a beautifully-structured slurp...Oh and Crunchies. Four Crunchie bars, fresh from the fridge so they have a beautiful, cold snap, that dissolves on your tongue into too-sweet honeycomb goodness...mmmm and oh god, ice cream, with biscuits and Crunchie bits, and syrup and fudge cake and......

My mother coughed.

"So...erm...that'd be a no then, would it?" she said, as I realised everyone was staring at me.
"Err..." I smiled, weakly. "Yes," I said.

"The thing about dieting," said my dad, "is that when you talk to a dietician, they ask you what you like, and what you don't like, and then they tell you you can't have what you do like, and that what you don't like, you've got to have..."

Yes, OK, there's a certain amount of Daily Mailness to the contracted sentiment there, but you've got to admit, there's a certain fatalistic accuracy to his appraisal. "The real secret," he continued, "is having what you want, when you want it...just not as much as you want."

Given the way my brain works - and indeed the way I've achieved the body I have, that needs the radical action I'm now taking - there's a part of me to which this logic simply does not compute. But there's another big part of me that wishes, above all, I could have taken the man's advice a couple of decades ago.

On the other hand, looking through his music collection this weekend, I realised my dad also has a double-disc collection of the Best of the Black And White Minstrel Show...

Sigh...

Happy Father's Day to everyone whose fathers are a combination of actual wisdom and opinions you want to go absolutely nowhere near. Gotta love 'em, don'tcha?