Today I bought a new tin opener.
For some unknown reason, neither of the two adults I spoke to today (my mother and brother. I'm not including the man in the shop where I bought the tin opener, since the conversation consisted of "that will be six pounds please" and that was it. I KNOW, EXPENSIVE) were even remotely interested in this, and when I pointed out that it was the highlight of my day, they basically accused me of being a very sad person with no life.
They didn't see me struggling with that tin of baked beans this morning. It took my old tin opener about twenty minutes to get halfway round, before I gave up and nearly ripped my fingers off by bending the open edge of the lid back and trying to squeeze out the beans. It was all very traumatic. Then I got my new tin opener, and it had the lid of a tin of chopped tomatoes cleanly off in seconds. It was AMAZING.
This is my life now that I am a mother. I get excited about tin openers. And Christmas cards. I decided that it was finally time to start sending my relatives Christmas cards. Proper ones that you buy in shops and post via the post box, rather than ones which I made at school and got my mum to give them. My elation at buying a pack of thirty cards for £1.50 was sadly short-lived after I realised I was going to have to spend at least £10 on stamps. Next year everyone's getting e-cards. Even my 92 year old grandmother who's never used a computer.
There was a certain satisfaction in writing the cards, and signing them as being from Piglet and I. Yes, there are two of us. I am no longer an ageing teenager who spends every Christmas in a single bed in her parents' house still secretly a little bit scared that the forbidding-looking angel who has sat atop the Christmas tree since 1982 is watching my every little misdeed and reporting back directly to Father Christmas. I am now an ageing teenager spending every Christmas in a single bed in her parents' house WITH A BABY. Therefore I am validated as a genuine adult in the eyes of the world, and obliged to send Christmas cards like the grown ups do.
When I told my mother about this she said not to worry as she had already added my name to all her Christmas cards. Two things: 1.) I am sure that my mother thinks that Piglet and I are both her children. In fact I am pretty sure she has referred to me as his sister on more than one occasion; and 2.) How has she managed to write all her Christmas cards already? It's NOVEMBER for God's sake! I thought I was the first person in the world to write a Christmas card this year, smashing all previously held records. Surely no normal person even thinks about this before 20th December? There is only one thing I can possibly conclude from this: one's organisational skills rise exponentially in line with one's number of years service as a mother.
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