Is it good luck or is it S**t?

A funny and tragic story for you today. When my sister first heard this story she cried and then laughed all at the same time. You will understand why when you read it.

Today is our parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary but only my sister and I have remembered. My parents’ day today was the bitter sweet mix that is now their life.

They are separated as a result of Mum’s illness (more on that another time), but they still see quite a lot of each other. Mum is physically much fitter than Dad so she often visits him, takes him a newspaper and occasionally they have lunch or coffee if Dad is feeling well enough to walk.

Today was a walking day. They went to Mum’s favourite café; Italian, where I’m told, they make a bit of a fuss of her. “How would you like your coffee?” “We haven’t seen you for a while, are you well?” Good customer service with a little bit of added attention which she loves. Before today they knew Dad less well.

Here is the story…

Mum was finishing her shopping and said she would join Dad at the café. As Dad approached the door of the café a pigeon, by all accounts one with some digestion problems decided he could not hold on any longer. And the result was that it hit poor Dad bang on the head!

It covered his hair, his neck and his coat. He said it hit his head so hard he thought a brick had fallen from the sky. Of course he was rather embarrassed when he realised what had actually happened and so he quickly wanted to find some way of cleaning himself up.

The waitress gave him some tissue but it was hardly adequate. So he went off to the bathroom to try to sort out the mess. Literally! By all accounts this was not too successful. The toilet attendant complained that he was washing s**t off in the sink. There was so much his coat ended up soaked and he couldn’t get it out of his hair. Plus on leaving the bathroom a helpful customer pointed out that he still had it all down his neck.

Now my Dad is known for exaggerating but we can verify that it was still in his hair hours later when his home help, Sue, arrived. Dad is blessed with some truly wonderful people around him and Sue is definitely one of them, especially today because she got the job of washing the mess out of his hair for him!

Mum in the meantime arrived at the café and was wondering where Dad was.

Now, I imagine that if you or I had arrived with Mum we would have been a bit concerned given Dad’s health. We would probably have worried that he was not sitting comfortably in a chair with his paper and a cappuccino. But not our Mum!

On finally returning from the wash room with his big bird story, Dad was subjected to a barrage of abuse for keeping her waiting, for not having her coffee on the table and for generally being an inconvenience!

Poor bewildered Dad was still trying to understand several hours later. By then there was just a smidgeon of impatience that his mishap was seen by Mum as a deliberate ruse to spoil her coffee!

Happy Anniversary Mum and Dad! Welcome to 60 years of marriage!