Friday evenings are a lesson in child logistics that parenting lessons do not prepare you for. Exhausted from a busy week I rendezvous with the lovely Sharon in a nearby town. The routine is that I take the little man and the littlest man to pick up the shopping, go home, pack it all away and then make everyone’s dinner. The lovely Sharon takes the little lady to a dance class and has to go to a coffee shop and sip an americano for an hour. This evening she claimed she was busy and had to use the time to do some Born-Haber cycles and other thermodynamic calculations. It sounded like more fun than shopping to be honest, but I have learnt that it is not constructive to share such observations.

 

Before getting the shopping the boys insisted that we had to go to the toilet. For the little man and the littlest man this is a weekly routine that takes too much time. This evening it turned into an impromptu science lesson on the importance of dietary fibre. The lesson stopped when my lesson objective got lost and the little man began counting all the bananas he would eat in a week, a month, a year.

 

Click and Collect is a wall of lockers outside. It is usually a fun game for the little people to  find the locker numbers. Today it asked me for age verification. There must be a bottle of wine behind one of the doors. Suddenly the game became fun for me as well. I typed in the lovely Sharon’s date of birth (as she completes the online order in her name).  INCORRECT – ONE TRY REMAINING. Confused, I typed it in again. INCORRECT – LOCKED OUT. I rang the lovely Sharon and explained. She was incredulous, “How can you not know my date of birth?” After some more explaining it transpired that I did indeed know my wife’s birthday. However, when completing the order on the previous evening she momentarily, or accidentally, did not. So what date did she put in? If the year is the same then there are 364 other possibilities and I had two tries before I got locked out again. Unless her birth year was a leap year. It did not seem the time for mental maths. I had to get into these lockers or I might go hungry tonight. Eh, I mean, my children might go hungry tonight.

 

I called the help line and completed the security questions as if I was the lovely sharon then explained the situation. I was asked if I had spoken to my wife. Immediately I knew the implication and again explained that contrary to all probability, I did indeed know my wife’s date of birth. Then I was advised to go into the store to see if someone could override the lockers.

 

After I explained to the little people that it was not Friday toilet time again, we found the staff at the helpdesk being kept busy by a long queue. Eventually it was our turn just as all four became free to help. This could have gone one of two ways. Either they were all simply work colleagues who stoically got on with their jobs or they got on well with each other with witty banter and it could be more embarrassing for me. One of them cracked a joke. They all laughed. I sighed. I began to explain before someone interjected, “…and you put in your own date of birth?  We get that a lot.” Gentle laughing and sympathetic nods from all four staff. Then I tried to explain that I had not put in my own date of birth and had not put in my wife’s date incorrectly. How I wished that the lovely Sharon was here to explain this herself. I would have enjoyed that much more. They had to track down someone with the ability to override the locks on the lockers. I took the boys to look at the toys as I waited and expected, “Man at reception doesn’t know his own wife’s date of birth,” to be blasted over the tannoy. Sense prevailed and it remained quiet.

 

During the drive home I was indignant. How could my own wife really assume I did not know her date of birth. The cliche! It’s just a simple number. It’s not like not knowing your own children’s ages. That one I have to think about, but in fairness, all three of them keep changing it so I think I can be forgiven.