Do us a favour

OPINION: Damn and it's almost February, writes Sarah McCarthy in this week's Uptown Girl.

This is all you'll be hearing from me from now on, I'm afraid, nothing but exclaimations of "Oh doesn't time fly" and other creaky, old-lady aphorisms about how quickly the years are flying past and leading me to the cold, bare branches and bitter snows of December ...

Because I'm pretty much in my early to mid-70s now, let's face it, and am thinking about getting a La-Z-Boy and some of those slippers with the sheepskin in them.

Although age, while depositing a battalion of lines that run the gamut from tiny pavement cracks to the Grand Fricking Canyon around my eyes, on my forehead and, oddly, on my wrists, has made me much more tolerant of things like Hot Cross Buns and Cadbury Creme Eggs appearing in shops in January.

In fact, I welcome them with wide open, tuck-shop lady arms. I've actually been driven to distraction these past few days by the clutch of psychedelically foiled Creme Eggs on the counter at my unfriendly local tobacconist.

And I'm already planning a Hot Cross Bun orgy of Roman proportions and am even idly wondering if I could make a kind of hybrid, Easter-y bread and butter pudding out of the buns (and then promptly giving that idea up for Lent because who can be bothered fiddling about with egg and milk and tearing bits of bun when you can just whap a pat of butter on a warm bun and blissfully absorb while standing in the middle of the kitchen looking at the filthy space between the oven and the fridge. Or is that just me?)

I can't feel as all-encompassing and come merry well met about the looming Day of the Valentines, though, even though it means it's our anniversary again, pals, six long years and nothing to show for it but some angry letters to the editor and a series of mildly disturbing hand-made cards.

But Valentines Day, as I've said about six times before, is just a pain in the area, fraught with drama and expectation, nerves and spite. I hate the damn day. Unless you are very pretty and 13, Valentines Day is a big baaaah.

Face it, you're either going to get nothing, which sucks because that means either you're single (lucky you, says old married hag, but I know a lot of people in that position don't necessarily think so) or that your partner doesn't love you enough or doesn't "believe in the commercialism", which means they're cheap, really. Doesn't it?

But the flipside is you'll get either a hideously overpriced bunch of roses, a dinner at a crowded restaurant with all the weight of having to have a romantic evening squashing the flavour out of even the tastiest food, or a big red devil holding a heart that says "Horny", which will make you puke.

I'd rather celebrate something much closer to my heart, the first annual "Do Us A Favour" day. Anyone in jail reading this (Hey, incarcerated pals!) or with friends or family behind bars anywhere in the country, or even on home detention – see if you all can't use your connections or new friends to make sure those two blokes with no respect for kittens get a nice, warm, hearty welcome when they get to jail.

Let's call it a big cuddle from the Uptown Girl? A nice biiiiig cuddddle.

» Sarah McCarthy is a Southland Times staff member.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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