Washed Up – Daniel 44

For back story go here: Story so far, and definitely this one.]

[Relevant back story links also within text.] 

Daniel only really regretted having given Gordon his phone number after the fifth text message he received from him that morning. This message signalled to him a very clear fact. Gordon didn’t get it. 

The fourth message from Gordon asked Daniel whether he had any suggestions for what he might be able to get Alexis to eat for her lunch. He was a little bored of just making spaghetti hoops over and over again and was hoping for something new. Unfortunately Daniel was trying to motivate a nice drawing out of Daisy at the time so simply texted back that he was a bit too busy to respond right now. This had precipitated text number five:

– Yeah, mate, tell me about it! You and me both!

Instilling worry in Daniel that he was about to be regaled with more details of Gordon’s busy day. Which, of course, he was.

– This is possibly the hardest day yet, continued Gordon. – Been trying to do the washing before LO got up. Nightmare. The machine has now stopped with everything in it. Water too.

Daniel was amazed he had time to text this much. Then thought he was probably dictating.

– Long story short, got that weird little door at the front open and….

Yes, thought Daniel, water everywhere.

– Water everywhere.

And, thought Daniel, from experience there’ll be a small piece of lego blocking the filter.

The third time Gordon messaged he was relatively upbeat. Alexis appeared to be enjoying the day so far. But then for some reason or other she became sad because she couldn’t find a particular toy. This toy transpired to be a very small lego person with a hat. The lego person was then found after some expert tracking down (or rather crawling over the floor) but the hat was nowhere to be seen. Daniel was able to be sympathetic to this plight and said often hats and so forth would be forgotten reasonably quickly if they didn’t turn up, and sometimes they just turned up out of the blue in unexpected places. 

Gordon was content with this, or at least Daniel assumed so as he heard nothing further.

The second time Gordon messaged he was after some advice. He had yet to try and wash Alexis’ clothes and was beginning to think that she really should get something clean against her skin. No real trouble, he thought, but then maybe there was an odd smell around and he couldn’t really trace it to anything. Do no harm in washing some clothes though, eh?

Except he didn’t understand the weird labels in the clothes. There were triangles and circles and who knew what. Did this mean he had to do everything by hand and at 30 or something? And should he worry about colours running at all given that these were quite old clothes now.

Daniel responded positively, noting that if the clothes had been washed multiple times they were probably quite robust by now and wouldn’t take much damage no matter what the machine threw at them. He advised a warm wash rather than going too cold or too hot and even threw in an anecdote about shrinking Daisy’s Unicorn bobble hat and not being able to forget it or move on from it for about a month afterwards.

Yes, reflected Daniel, things were never really the same again hat-wise until he’d tracked down a stockist of a replacement. It was difficult to get an exact replacement since the original model was old and now out of date compared with the current illustration of the Unicorns. But somehow he had managed to convince Daisy that the one he’d found was the answer to her prayers. After a few weeks of playing, throwing, pulling and dragging the hat had finally been accepted, but there was no way she’d let it go through the trauma of being washed any time soon. Daniel finally carefully washed it by hand one evening, having wrested it from her hands while she slept.

The first time Gordon messaged Daniel was really pleased to hear from him. It was a message to say hello and good to meet another father the other day. Nice to support everyone doing their level best at a particularly challenging time.

Daniel forgave himself for not immediately responding to Gordon’s fifth message. And then the sixth message came through and it just read.

– OK, be like that. Only trying to be a friend. But obviously you aren't.