From Picking up a Penguin’s Egg Really Got Me into Trouble.
Used with permission.

There is usually a nod of feigned sympathy. If I’m lucky I get a doleful look and a sad smile. Occasionally, I’m treated to a sympathetic hand on the shoulder as friends rally around to help me deal with my loss.

It’s not easy for them either. They also struggle to come to terms with my predicament; their eyes darting around the room as if seeking a solution, kind souls struggling to find the right words, scrambling for a suitable reaction to my loss, my handicap; my unbearable circumstances.

I do not employ a foreign domestic helper.

I know. I know. The depravation must be unthinkable, unfathomable. My daughter is being raised in a Dickensian sweatshop. Her every waking moment is like an audition for Angela’s Ashes. She spilled some Ribena on the kitchen…