DILemmas aND CONuNDrums

When I got up this morning, my mum told me to write a Christmas list. She also told me that, in an hour or so from now, she’s going to take me out to lunch and treat me to whatever I fancy from the menu. I said, ‘Wow, take it easy, Mother! I might start to develop a brattitude.’ And then I asked, ‘What’s the big occasion?’

My mum said, ‘There isn’t any big occasion. I’m feeling spontaneous. I can treat my little girl to lunch if I want to, can’t I?’ Then she pulled a stupid face at me and said, ‘And, Lottie, you’ve had a brattitude for a while but when I’m wearing my brat shades, I don’t notice it so much.’ And then she took her sunglasses out of the kitchen drawer and put them on, even though we were indoors and it was the middle of winter.

‘You are SO childish,’ I said.

My mum pulled another stupid face and said in a stupid voice, ‘Do I care though?’ and then she started tickling me and wouldn’t stop until I threatened to call The Jeremy Kyle Show.

It didn’t stop her from annoying me though. By some weird trick of fate, the ‘I Am What I Am’ song started playing on the radio and my mum turned up the volume as high as it would go and began to sing along in a voice so ridonkulously loud that the neighbours could probably hear. The whole situation gave me such a severe case of cringe-flu that, for a second, I forgot where I was and thought I must be in a cringe-flu isolation ward at Cringetown General Hospital.

My mum is massively embarrassing sometimes.

She’s also in a massively good mood at the moment. She doesn’t even seem particularly bothered by the fact that horrible Detective Sergeant Giles keeps phoning her up at home when she isn’t even supposed to be worrying her head about work. Nothing is getting her down. Her trip to the pub last night must have really done her some good. I can’t help noticing that she’s even started wearing a glamorous new shade of lipstick. It makes her look really nice and less like a fusty old policewoman.

Which is all well and good but I’ve still got some important issues to address.

Like my Christmas list.

The trouble is that, right now, I’m finding it really hard to stay focused on all that happy stuff Because this time of year just brings me too many dilemmas. I’ve looked up the word conundrum in my dictionary. It says this:

conu’ndrum (noun) puzzle; difficult question

Goose’s geeky friend was right. Christmas is a conundrum. Don’t get me wrong – it’s pure point-blank priceless quality, but it does throw up some very difficult and puzzling questions. Even deep-thinking philosophers like myself don’t always have all the answers. I’m going to try and deal with them one at a time.

1.What do I really want to be given this year?

I’ve thought about this long and hard. Here is my wish list. To be honest, I’ve got more chance of being elected as the next prime minister of Japan than I have of finding a TV or a laptop under our Christmas tree. My mum doesn’t like the idea of me having a telly in my bedroom and she says that I don’t actually need a laptop. But strictly speaking, apart from the false eyelashes, the leg warmers and the orang-utan adoption pack, I suppose I don’t really need anything.

2.What am I going to give other people?

The only person I’ve asked so far is my mum. She said she’d like the latest CD by Susan Boyle. I did my utmost then to steer her in the direction of the Kings of Leon or Lady Gaga but she wasn’t having any of it. She said she quite liked Lady Gaga but she much preferred Susan Boyle’s voice and appearance. I am now placed in a very awkward position. What if the person in the shop thinks I’m buying SuBo for myself???

3. How am I going to give them anything at all when I don’t actually have any money?

This is sad but tragically true. Since I quit my last Saturday job of sweeping up stray human hairs in a hairdressing salon, the only income I have is the occasional bit of pocket money from my mum or dad whenever they take pity on me.6 I don’t like accepting their charity but, because I’m in no position to be proud and because they are my parents, I accept it anyway. Sometimes, when she’s home, even my sister Ruthie gives me pocket money and she’s a poverty-stricken student who survives on a diet consisting entirely of baked beans and bumper bags of jelly babies. I have no problem about taking money from her though because, if I didn’t, she’d only waste her entire allowance on beer. Because this is what university students do.

4. As a follower of the philosophy of René Descartes, should I even bother to celebrate Christmas anyway? After all, the only thing that I can be truly certain of is my own existence.

It’s not easy being a philosopher. There’s a lot of thinking involved. I definitely think that we philosophers think more than most ordinary people think. But what’s interesting is that if I added up all the time I’ve spent thinking about these first four conundrums, it still wouldn’t come close to equalling the hours that I’ve spent worrying about the fifth and final one.

5. Who will I be spending Christmas Day with this year?

This might not seem like a tricky question to anybody else but it is to me and it’s been niggling away at my brain for quite some time. The niggle started during an otherwise pleasant conversation in which Gareth asked me if I’d go to the end-of-term disco with him. It’s just under a fortnight away and on the very last day of school. Everyone will be going. Even Candy Craddock in Year 10 – and she’s got a mega-phobia of strobe lights. I love them though. And dry ice machines. I’d given Gareth a kiss and said, ‘I certainly will, big boy,’ and he’d looked all chuffed and added, ‘Oh, and before I forget, my mum wants to know if you’ll come and have your tea with us on Christmas Eve.’ This time, instead of kissing him and calling him big boy, I got a bit flustered and started examining my split ends.

It’s not that I don’t want to have tea at his house. I do.

But the awkward truth is that I actually have no idea where I’ll be on December 24th of this year. Or the 25th. Or the 26th. And this makes it very difficult for me to prearrange my personal life. It’s OK for my older sister, Ruthie, because her life is much more straightforward than mine. Ruthie thinks that my dad’s new wife, Sally, is a crusty hedge-pig. My dad and Sally know this and never invite her up to stay. But I get on OK with everyone and this just makes my life ridonkulously complicated. I’m a bit like the baton in a relay race. My mum gets to hold on to me for one Christmas and then the following year I’m passed up to Wrexham to spend Christmas with my dad and Sally and my little brother, Caradoc. And each year, I’ve been passed backwards and forwards like this since I was nine years old.

But now I’m not sure whose turn it is to carry the baton. Last year, Caradoc caught chickenpox and my dad phoned and cancelled my visit. I had to take my train ticket back to the railway station and they gave me a great big whopping refund because it’s hideously expensive to go all the way from Cardiff to where my dad lives. After all, it’s equivalent to the entire length of Wales. My dad let me keep the money so I went into town and bought myself some hot-pink hair-straighteners.⁷ But I’d still have preferred to see my dad. And now it’s practically a year later and my mum is talking about all the things we might do over the holidays and Gareth has asked me to tea on Christmas Eve and Goose has invited me over to her house to watch Glee again and

I just don’t know what to say.

Because I can’t make any concrete plans as I’m sort of expecting my dad to invite me up north to spend the holidays with him. It’s definitely his turn. And I know that he will invite me sooner or later.

He just hasn’t yet.

Even Winnie can’t help me with this one and Winnie is the Wisest Chinchilla in the Whole of Wales.

He’s also extremely ancient and looks like a big scruffy snowball.

When I discuss my problems with Winnie, he makes a cute little chirping noise, twitches his ears a bit and falls asleep.

Winnie belongs to me even though he sleeps in Ruthie’s room. He used to sleep in my room but he has this habit of bouncing around all night and keeping me awake so, every evening, I relocate him down the hall. Ruthie is at university and hardly ever at home so she’s not exactly in any position to complain.

I know it sounds weird but I often talk to Winnie and tell him my problems. Blake, my counsellor, says that it’s perfectly normal to discuss important things with a pet and that pets are often the best counsellors of all. I agree. I know that Winnie listens to me because he has wise little eyes which watch me closely whenever I speak to him. And, considering that he’s only a chinchilla, he’s actually a remarkably good listener. I’d even say that he’s as good at listening as Blake is – and Blake has probably had professional training. To be fair though, Blake is much better than Winnie at giving advice. Because Winnie can’t speak. Obviously.

My mum can though. And she’s just called up the stairs to tell me that it’s time for us to go and get some lunch. Which means that the only conundrum I’m facing right now is what the hicketty-heck I’m going to eat. And that’s not a very perplexing conundrum at all.