Prudence, patron saint of donkeys in need, turned 60 last week. We had a lunch, during which the Sacred Birthday Mug was passed on. The mug, we are pretty certain, was one of Blokesy Stokesy’s joke presents. His greatest talent is in the giving of outrageously awful presents. Like the nudie girl calendar and packet of fags he gave to Greg last Christmas.
Stokesy, who lives just around the bend, can’t remember whether the mug was one of his offensive, though in this case mildly offensive, offerings, but it was immediately consigned to a cupboard.
We have since come up with a cunning plan for the terrible mug. We are hoping that by regifting it, it will begin a trend whereby it will be passed from person to person, birthday after birthday, around Wairarapa until eventually someone gives it back to Stokesy for his 80th birthday. By that time, he will be completely around the bend, and the poor mug will probably think it the most fabulous gift in the world. He can drink his cocoa out of it, possibly using a straw.
In the meantime, the mug has to remain in its box and drinking from it is prohibited. It must, like all items deemed collectible when they are really just bits of tat, remain pristine in all of its awfulness so that it can be reviled by others for all those birthdays to come.
Pru was suitably impressed. “Look,” she said, hardly sceptically at all, “it says it’s fine bone china.” It may not be that. But as can be seen, it is quite something to behold. It has fake diamantés and an even faker sentiment: “Happy Birthday, Gorgeous.”
It is a very nice thing to spend a 60th birthday lunch with a friend who appreciates a terrible joke and a hideous thing for a birthday present. She did get some proper presents, including home-made chocolate truffles made by me, because other people’s birthdays are all about me showing off what a domestic goddess I am, surely.
There were just the three of us at Pru’s 60th. There were just the three of us at my 60th last year. I faintly entertained the idea of throwing a big bash but the very thought made me feel faint.
You spend your 20s collecting people, mostly unsuitable, often madly unstable and, upon reflection, pretentious people. The friends of your youth are unreliable, but so were you, probably.
The people I knew, or sort of knew, were all a bit bonkers. A fair number of them were also druggies, but I was so dumb I just thought they were sleep-deprived. We all used to stay up far too late.
You spend your 30s trying to get rid of the worst of them.
The realisation that I needed a thorough culling of my social circle was when I put on a fancy dinner at the request of an old mate so he could woo an acting luvvie I had met only twice. About the time the would-be wooer was supposed to arrive, he phoned to say he wasn’t coming.
The dinner went ahead anyway, though one guest, both pretentious and drugged up, nodded off over the summer pudding. He was dull company then, but once he got clean he was even more boring.
By the time you make it to your 40s, you more or less have the list down to people you actually enjoy talking to, and who can make good jokes. I still like slightly bonkers people. I just prefer them not to be junkies. Or boring.
Pru tells good jokes. When I asked whether I could write about her turning 60 while at the same time becoming the latest holder of the ugliest mug in the world, she said I could, though she did have concerns. “I’m now worried someone will rob me for the gorgeous cup,” she texted. “They will know I am now old and can be easily beaten up.”
My advice was to hide the mug. Perhaps in an enormous pile of donkey poo.
