Got my own back - didn't work.

On arriving home after eighteen hours at work the other night, my house was in turmoil as not one but two women were bathing and changing. It’s bad enough when either my wife or daughter does it but together! I thought I was going to choke on the assorted perfume/talc miasma.

     ‘Where are you going?’ I demanded since I was clearly the only man on the planet who’d ever worked an exceptionally long day.

    ‘We’re going for a drink with the girls from the stable.’

     ‘And am I invited?’ My wife spared me a pitying glance before returning the mountain of clothes she was not going to wear.

     ‘But you wouldn’t come if we had invited you.’

     That wasn’t the point.

     ‘But you didn’t ask me!’

     This time her gaze was less than warm.

     ‘Very well, darling. Would you like to come?’ I noticed a cessation of movement from the bathroom as my daughter paused from whatever it is young woman do during the eight hours it takes to transform themselves.

     ‘What, go out with a bunch of chattering women, making fun of their boyfriends and husbands? Not if my soul depended on it!’

     ‘There.’ she smiled sweetly, ‘You’ll have a whole evening without us. War films, horror films and all that rubbish you like to watch again and again and again.’

     ‘It was time to get my own back on my daughter, who’d come down in the hope of witnessing violence.

     ‘You both hate me and wish I was dead!’

     This is beloved daughter’s standard shtick whenever she doesn’t get what she wants.

     ‘Yes, darling. Now have a good evening. And if you can stave off slitting your wrists for a few moments, I’ve left your favourite dinner in the oven.’

     And my favourite war film wasn’t on!!!