The Diary of an Expectant Father
Pete Sortwell
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Copyright © Pete Sortwell 2013
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Table of Contents
The Diary of an Expectant Father: Graham Peterson
Introduction
Thanks
Coming soon
Also by Pete Sortwell
The Diary of an Expectant Father: Graham Peterson
Pete Sortwell
Introduction
I thought I’d keep a diary; I’m never, EVER going to show it to anyone, but I am going to bury it in the garden, sealed in a tightly wrapped plastic bag. I’m even going to put a photo in. Then one day, in three thousand years’ time, it’ll be read by the aliens that take over the world and they’ll have an insight into what life was like for someone who was becoming a father for the first time. They’ll probably make me an alien lord or something. If DNA technology is advanced enough, they could even bring me back to life. If you are an alien warlord or anything like that, there is a sample of my blood on the piece of cloth sellotaped to the back of this diary. Please only recreate me if you plan on giving me an easy life. I’ve also put a strand of my best friend Keith’s hair in the back; if you need to anally probe anyone then please use this to bring him back instead. I’ve always suspected he’d be really into that, so you’d probably be doing him a favour.
Other than that I’m Graham Peterson, I’m twenty-eight, and it’s the year 2012. If you’re interested, England, where I live, is hosting the Olympic Games this year. That’s a sporting event; or, more accurately, a series of sporting events. We’re all completely underwhelmed. Most of London, our capital city, is closed off to make way for the people taking part, so normal people have to sit in traffic for far longer than they normally would.
Earth is a strange place at this time. You have to work all day for five days a week; we do this for most our lives and then we give up a couple of years before we die. I suppose you’ve moved on by now. Again, if you’re able to recreate me into a world without work, then please do. I’ve a certificate in saving lives, so if any of your kind are planning on falling into swimming pools while wearing their pyjamas, I’m your man. For any other medical problems you’re probably better off recreating someone else. David Attenborough might be a good bet.
Back to me, though … I’m an expectant father, I’ve not really got a clue what I’m doing and I thought writing this might give all your people in the future either an idea of how rubbish we were in the new millennium or go some way to helping me find a way out of my own worries. Either way it’s a release for me and that’s all I really care about.
So that’s me. I’m a pretty normal guy who has found himself in a pretty normal situation. This is the story of the pregnancy and how I came to terms with being an expectant father.
Wednesday January 26th 2012
5.30 p.m.
I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. I remember seeing a TV programme about how writing a diary is a release and can help people. That’s all I can think to do as I don’t think this is something that can be sorted by my normal solution to problems (a few pints in the pub with Keith); this is going to be long term.
Alison rang me this morning and said she needed to speak to me urgently. I reminded her we were on the phone and that it was a technical possibility to speak there and then, but she insisted that we do it in person. I hate it when people do that, more so as I still had six hours of work left and couldn’t help but obsess about just what it could be. I’m meeting her in an hour, so going to shower and get ready.
10.00 p.m.
Well, it’s happened … somehow I’ve managed to pass on my miserable seed to a woman who’s kept it rather than rejected it, along with me, which is usually the case. Alison told me that she’d missed her period. I almost dropped my battered sausage. Why she waited until I was taking a bite to tell me, I don’t know. I wasn’t interested in carrying on eating after that, anyway. The shock was enough to put any man off a portion of Terry’s excellent chips.
‘How long have you known?’ I asked.
‘Well, I knew I’d missed it last week,’ she told me.
After a few back and forth questions from me, which all seemingly had really obvious answers, we decided that we had to know for sure and that meant one thing: pregnancy test. We spent an hour in Boots looking at all the different types. You wouldn’t believe how many different sorts of tests there are, digital, non-digital, double digital, it’s crazy. Pink ones, blue ones, white ones, I don’t know how anyone is supposed to make the choice based on anything other than price. All of them were ninety-nine point something per cent accurate. I mean if it’s five quid and ninety-nine point nothing per cent accurate, it’s going to be pretty good, what real difference does the point four or point five make? There can’t be much difference in it. I noticed the most expensive one was almost twenty-five quid. Just as I was jamming it back on the shelf before Alison saw it and wanted it, because of the shiny box and wild claims of being ninety-nine point NINE per cent accurate, a couple of greasy looking women walked past me and snorted, telling one another that, ‘You can get the same thing in Poundland, only for a quid.’ All smug. I don’t believe you can actually get pregnancy tests in Poundland so I didn’t drag Alison over there, but we did manage to settle on a middle of the road test for eight pounds. It’s ninety-nine point four per cent accurate.
‘Sir, you can’t go in there,’ the security guard called after me as I followed Alison into the ladies. I didn’t think it would matter if it was for official business, no funny stuff or looking at women weeing. He wouldn’t have it, though, and followed me in to remove me physically.
Alison didn’t want to do it without me there, although personally I didn’t mind too much. I wasn’t really too keen on seeing her do that anyway. But if I’ve learnt one thing tonight then it’s that you don’t disagree with a pregnant — or at that point a potentially pregnant — woman. She’d been drinking water all the way into town and by the time we managed to get rid of the security guard from the shopping centre, Alison was really angry and literally busting for a wee. She frantically looked around the centre for somewhere to go. I couldn’t see any other outcome than her wetting herself and was working myself up thinking about how today wasn’t going at all as I’d thought it would when I woke up this morning. ‘In here,’ Alison demanded, almost pulling my arm out the socket as she clambered into a photo booth.
I couldn’t fit into the booth, so I had to stand with my head poking through the curtain while Alison hiked up her skirt, pulled her pants down and let the river flow, as it were. I was so busy concentrating on the stick to see if it lit up or beeped or whatever it was we were going to get for our eight quid that I didn’t notice the river of urine that was pouring out the booth onto the floor, via my shoes. As quick as she’d started Alison finished and did the most inconsiderate
thing I’ve ever known her to do: she flicked the piss stick and sprayed the only part of my body that was in the photo booth – my face. I got pregnant piss in my eyes, mouth and nose. I’d been given a golden face shower. I’m sure there are some weirdos out there that would have paid money to have a similar thing happen to them. I am not one of them.
It was as I stepped backwards that I noticed the river, well, I say noticed … I mean slipped in. I had piss on my face and piss on my shoes. Then Alison said that we needed to wait five minutes for the test to dry. ‘It’ll probably be done in two,’ I said wiping most of what had been on the stick off my face as we headed away from the mess we’d made as quickly as we could.
It wasn’t a big celebration when the line stayed blue and the instructions told us that she was pregnant. If I’m honest, Diary, for one of the most important moments of my adult life, I was angry about having been covered in piss. So angry that all I could really think of was not that there would be a little bundle of joy in my life soon, but that I would be able to get home and have a regular shower designed for normal people soon. Alison just looked shocked. Then I don’t suppose