My mother’s corked her second successive bottle of wine.
My father’s Bermuda shorts are as undignified as they are tight.
And the dog is in love.
Oh, and we’re on holiday in a caravan park.
Please someone tell me that I was adopted.
Now mater and pater's regression to state o' nature, bottle and parental neglect was foretold.
But I had higher hopes for “man’s best friend”.
The pristine rubber bone and unclaimed tennis ball under the caravan proffered evidence that Hergé had woefully misjudged canine loyalty.
I pleaded with the dog that she was wasting her time, it would all end in tears and promises made on vacation are never packed into the suitcase for the journey home.
Her retort was that dogs have holiday romances too, standard anthropomorphic rules had been suspended in the name of literary fiction and, as an only child, shouldn’t I have an imaginary friend waiting for me down at the arcades.
So I tried to find solace in the warmth of the 10p oasis.
But all I found were “bigger boys”, and the law of the jungle.
My attempt at a boy’s own fortnight had culminated in a boy on his own, hands rarely leaving the pockets of his shorts.
On the final evening, as punishment for kicking over the sandcastles made by the evil twins from the neighbouring caravan, I’d been banished to the sand dunes to find two lovesick, shagging Alsatians.
The two discarded dog collars at the end of the windbreaker left no doubt that true love finds a way for all species.
So as I trudged off, flimsy flip flops offering no resistance to landmine crabs and tripwire seaweed, I thought to myself:
Aren’t poignant childhood moments supposed to take place under a sunset on a beach?
2008-07-15 @ 08:01