It’s Valentine’s Day.
The first Valentine’s Day since Lizzie got the all-clear from her cancer.
And…
… unfortunately…
… it’s crap.
I can tell things are getting off to a bad start, when I present Lizzie with her card and box of chocolates.
The card goes down OK. After all, it’s a Valentine’s card. As long as it says something vaguely nice and affectionate it’s going to do the job, let’s be honest.
The chocolates I present Lizzie, however, go down like a cup of sick. A cup of sick with globules of milk chocolate in it.
‘You know I don’t like milk chocolate!’ Lizzie exclaims, as she lets the box of Thorntons chocolates, I’ve just presented, dangle dismissively from her hand.
She peers at the box. ‘These are Spar chocolates!’ she sniffs.
Lizzie has given me a box of M&S milk chocolates. So describing the chocolates I’ve given her as being from Spar Supermarket… well, let’s just say it’s intended as the gravest of middle class insults.
And, uncannily, she’s absolutely right. The chocolates are from Spar. I bought them in a panic and a rush, last night, after I’d dropped Annie off at football.
How does Lizzie know these things? It’s like she’s got some kind of snobbery-based sixth sense.
Things don’t get much better through the course of the day. We’ve had a lot of outgoings on the house recently (which is falling apart, frankly) and we’re pretty short of cash.
So, unlike last year when we got lovely sushi to share at home for our Valentine’s dinner, this year there’ll be no sushi (on the plus side, at least that means our son Jake can’t snarfle it all).
In fact, the only thing Lizzie and I do together, on this Valentine’s evening, is have a row. The row is superficially about housework. But really it’s about how shit our Valentine’s Day is being.
Thankfully, as the (nearly) spring air lolls through the house, the next day, tensions between myself and Lizzie begin to thaw.
Lizzie even comes up to me… and offers me one of the Spar chocolates I gave her.
She isn’t being entirely benevolent. In return, Lizzie wants me to give her some of the ‘classier’ M&S chocs which were her (superior) gift to me.
‘Sure,’ I say. We swap the two boxes.
Lizzie’s been so disdainful about her Spar chocolates, I’m a little surprised when I discover that half the box is empty. There are half a dozen empty spaces, where the chocs previously nestled.
‘Did Annie eat these?’ I ask Lizzie, confused.
‘No…’ replies Lizzie, in a small voice. It’s clear, from her tone, who did eat them.
‘But you don’t even like milk chocolates!’ I cry. ‘How many of these have you eaten today? Ten? Twelve?!’
Lizzie shrugs. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Now, let me get this straight. I’m not chocolate shaming Lizzie here. If she wants to eat half a box of Spar milk chocolates (her box of Spar milk chocolates, after all), that is absolutely her prerogative (even if she doesn’t actually like them).
What’s a little surprising about Lizzie’s current chocolate binging, however, is that she’s tried to steer clear of OD’ing on sugar… ever since she had cancer. In general, she’s been focused on eating as healthily as possible. And, of course, whilst there have been times when she’s slipped… this has been a bigger slip than usual. Has something driven her to it?
‘It’s because my work is so boring!’ Lizzie wails, as if reading my mind. ‘It’s just boredom eating!’
Yes, of course, Boredom Eating. One of the great, rarely-discussed long-term consequences of the pandemic. Working from home… being bored-out-of-your-brains doing it… and munching on something purely as a form of procrastination.
‘I can’t help it,’ Lizzie whimpers. ‘I’d been doing really well, not eating sugary things. But today I’ve really totally fallen off the wagon!’
‘I’d say you’ve fallen off the wagon… and then you’ve eaten the wagon,’ I reply, unhelpfully.
Lizzie does something between a scowl and a smirk – suggesting simultaneous annoyance and amusement.
Then she eats another chocolate. An M&S one.
P. D. Clifton 
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