Tea Party – Daniel 6

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

Daisy was still on a conference call with her mum. Ordinarily Daniel wouldn’t have minded, but today it was winding him up. 

The main reason Chrissy was in touch was because this morning there had been a hand delivered package addressed specifically to Daisy. Daniel being suspect about every package and the amount of germs it might contain, but the fact that it had Daisy’s name on it meant it had to be torn open as soon as possible – at least that’s what Daisy thought.

Through bribery with the last few remaining Krispies of the week (and Daniel prayed to every god he could think of that the grocery delivery would hit the appointment time before 7am tomorrow morning) he had managed to prise Daisy’s fingers from the parcel and stow it on a high shelf in the cupboard.

Only thirty seconds seconds into the call, Chrissy had lit a fire under Daniel’s intentions, claiming he was being waaaaay over the top and not to be such a spoil sport. Daisy had taken up the cause immediately chanting ‘Spoil Sport’ in her dad’s face at top whack for a full five minutes before Daniel gave in. Oh, how Chrissy laughed at the other end of the line and oh, how Daniel wanted to just pull the plug on the wifi but couldn’t because he was expecting Sandra to call immediately after this session and he wasn’t confident enough that the technology would reboot successfully in the time available.

So with her mother looking virtually on Daisy did indeed rip open the package (shooting germs everywhere) and was sent sky high to find a fully operational Talking Tea Set toy from Spakledom therein. While Daisy thanked her mum for everything (including the tea set, the oceans and the stars above) Daniel spent an infuriating fifteen minutes wrestling the gift out of its packaging (locating small screw driver to release that lid of the thing) and then sprinting round the house to raid three AA batteries from something or other that could do without them for a while. That turned out to be his bedside alarm-clock radio.

Chrissy was further entertained by Daniel’s choice of words to express his frustration and complimented him on being so restrained and well trained given the obvious stress of the situation.

The stress was then ratcheted up a couple more notches as Daisy sat down in front of the computer screen to have a tea party with her mum and discover how all the various characters worked, what they said – and indeed to recite what they said in pretty much every episode of Sparkledom she’d ever seen.

As the deadline for Sandra’s call approached Daniel started dropping hints, then heavy hints, then huge hints and finally saying outright that he needed the computer in five minutes and let’s have a countdown shall we? Unfortunately, Chrissy and Daisy had entirely hit their stride now with Chrissy lining up a number of soft toys at the other side of the screen to join in the fun.

Daniel sent Sandra an apologetic text and a request for a five minute delay, then another for a quarter of an hour delay and finally stood her down until further notice. Sandra said she didn’t mind but she was going to go out for a run and wouldn’t be back for another hour at least. Blocking his ears from the squeals of delight in the living room, he searched through his calendar on his phone and registered that he needed to report back to his boss by midday, so it would be close if he didn’t speak with Sandra about every until then but not impossible…

“Dammit Chrissy,” he started when he couldn’t take it any more, “You have to get off this line! It’s been lovely that you’ve been able to do this for Daisy, but I have work to do.”

“Work that’s more important than..?”

“Not more important, equally important – you can’t compare the two, right? For fry’s sake, I have a job to do! Still! Just about!”

The argument was brief, hard and effective. And sadly compromised by the fact that Nadia tried to call him just before Chrissy hung up. Daisy, delightedly that she could read the incoming call on daddy’s computer screen, announced that his new girlfriend was calling. This tripped another ten minutes of nearly-but-not-quite shouting at the screen to say he wasn’t expecting this call, yes he really was going to do work and no he wasn’t getting rid of Chrissy just to talk to Nadia.

When finally the dust finally settled he decided to give Sandra a call anyway. To his surprise he got through to her on his mobile. He apologised profusely for messing her around. Sandra said it was OK, she hadn’t gone for a run anyway because of something that had come up. 

“Sorry,” said Daniel. “Been one of those days and it’s not even – whatever time it is now.”

“You don’t need to apologise,” said Sandra. “And I know it's been one of those days. Something went wrong this morning.”

Daniel waited to hear the bad news, looking up only to see the precise moment when Daisy accidentally dropped the Talking Teapot from a sufficient enough height so it fell straight to the floor without apparently pausing as it shattered the smoked glass top of his coffee table.