MODERN FAMILY
THE last thing my husband needed when he returned home late from a long shift in work was to find his wife standing, rather balancing, on one shoe, surrounded by a pile of clothes, with a deranged look on her face.
The six little words that were uttered next are enough to strike fear into any man.
He had only just put one foot through the door when he was confronted with the question: “How do I look in this?”
When they are uttered in our house he usually tries to make a run for the shed to find a really important DIY job, I even caught him once hiding his glasses so he could pretend he couldn’t see properly.
Even my elder son has obviously learned his lesson as he usually retreats (or runs) to the safety of his room.
They are terrified of giving the wrong response, berated when they say it looks “nice” (I mean, what does that mean
– nice good or nice bad?) and then have to put up with the anger and despair when they admit defeat and do actually tell the truth.
Even though they have said, in the nicest possible way, that the outfit does not really work together.
This time it is sorting out what to take on holiday, and they have the double pain of my realisation that the New Year resolution to be beach ready has once again failed.
After my husband made his excuses and refused to say anything, it was the time to enlist the help of my younger and his fellow straight-talking friend. What on earth was I thinking?
I was of course forgetting just how brutally honest children can be.
I know getting the truth is the whole idea, but was I really ready for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? The answer is no.
Last year the same pair had me and my friend cowering in a department store changing-room. The clothes had looked so nice on the hanger, but according to the mini Trinny and Susannah we were very wrong.
Outfit number one was my particular favourite until they told me that the colour didn’t go with my yellow and black hair (think they were commenting on my roots), the second outfit was the colour of “baby sick” and they didn’t have to say anything about the third, the roll of the eyes said everything.
It got so bad I had to warn them I was coming out in the clothes that I actually owned in case they passed comment on those as well.
To be fair, they were right that none of the outfits was suitable, it is just difficult to hear the actual truth.
Having not learned my lesson, I decided to recruit them again this year. It was hard, but it does mean that I am definitely going to be within the airline’s baggage limit as there are only a few clothes that passed the “test’”.