Daddy Issues


     A large, middle-aged woman with a harried, drooping face and long hair which was once blonde sits with two of her friends in a Hackney cafe. She has just ordered a Sunday lamb roast, but she insisted on extra gravy, because "I need to have the extra juiciness to make the roast potatoes nice and gooey on the palate". She now holds court in a braying voice that rings around the cafe. 
     "My damned father will never answer my damned text messages and by the time he does damn well answer them I can't remember what I'd damn well said to him, the absolute pig... He sits in that damned house like Lord Muck and expects everyone to damn well run around after him, but will he lift a damn finger or make a damned effort? not on your bloody life." 
     Her friends nod in well-established silence. Finally, one of them dares to speak.
     "I read the other day about a woman my age - 64 - who has just had a baby."  She fumbles on her phone and finally finds the case, via Google, which she holds aloft for the party to look at. The grumpy Amazon screws up her face at this and says, "But, she didn't 'have a baby', as you put it, she merely manufactured a baby. There's a big difference. And as with all of these things, it's male scientists studying the hell out of the male aspect and not giving a toss about the poor woman." 
     The party fell into silence again.
     "Speaking of my damned father," the monster continued, "I believe that I get my emotional intelligence and my wit and my sense of humour from my mother."

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