Birthday Blues by Alfred Muggins

11/12/24
    Alfred woke up well 45 minutes earlier than his alarm was due to go off, to set him on the path to his wife’s sister’s house to accompany her on her driving to take her two youngest kids to their school across the local border into the next town. She was still learning to drive, so she needed an experienced driver like Alfred to accompany her, and give her a few tips, and the chance to practice.
    His natural ablutions completed he went back to bed, attempting to sleep until the alarm, but remained slightly conscious due to the knowledge that his wife was still in hospital after a ‘small’ but ‘private’ surgery (on the NHS thankfully (National Health Service - for any (poor!) Americans who might be reading and not knowing what that means!) They were not yet living in the United States where private companies ran all health ‘industries’, including their own overmighty health insurance industries, one of who’s Chief Executives had recently been gunned down in New York City by a disgruntled client who’s medical fees had presumably not been allowed by the profiteering corrupt racket of a lovely company, famous (infamous?) in the States called United Healthcare, which according to some posts on social media had been disallowing 32% of their customers’ medical claim sums in the last year or so in order to make larger profits and to pay top Executives and shareholders more! (ie depriving them of medical treatments even when they were paying into policies!))
    (Luigi Mangione apparently shot and killed CEO Brian Thompson about 4/12/24 leaving bullet casings at the scene engraved with the words “Deny, Defund, Depose”, (Delay, Deny, Depose?) - describing a policy of denying as many health insurance claims as they could. The Robin Hood or Batman figure was finally spotted and snitched upon by a lowly paid employee of a McDonalds burger bar somewhere in New York. Alfred wondered if he ever received his ‘30 pieces of silver’ reward? Or just how many people had been pushed to an earlier death or greater physical suffering, or indeed bankruptcy, due to not having their medical bills covered by United Healthcare, or indeed by the Health Insurance ‘industry’ as a whole?) But I digress as usual. My apologies to those who don’t think economics is political, or don’t like politics.)
    Anyway, in the UK Mrs Muggins was currently still safe from Health Insurance company attempts to avoid expenditure in the rush to maximize profits. So not only was she paid for by the taxpayer, but she managed the day before to get her operation first, and be given favourable treatment when her blood pressure and heart readings were a little low. Alfred had been most relieved when he heard her voice on the telephone, at half past two in the afternoon and everything was alright.
    She had requested to stay in the hospital the night after, and indeed they had been watching her statistics. So, after walking their little dog in the local village (suburb!) and returning home to feed the dog and the cat, he picked up his wife’s client from her daughter’s and took her into her day centre, before loyally ringing his wife to say he was on his way to pick her up. Using his proficient knowledge of local roads and backstreets he made it to the bottom road below the big hospital to pick his pink dressing gowned wife, waiting for her (cheap!) personal taxi, chauffeur driven, by none other than Alfred Muggins, from near where he had dropped her off just the day before at 7.20 a.m. in the early morning December darkness.
15/12/24
   And there she was! Waiting in the right place, at the bottom of the hospital, near the zebra crossing, in her notable Pink Dressing Gown. Thankfully there were no cars just behind him; anyway it wouldn’t have made any difference, she would have got in anyway as she got determinedly into the passenger seat of her own car.
   He had got his wife back, thankfully, and in one piece. It did seem that she had managed to recharge her batteries while in hospital, overnight, after the ‘day’ surgery. He could immediately tell she had slept well. (He later found out she had had a room of her own, and the hotel (no – hospital!) staff had all been marvelously helpful and nice!) She had been able to recharge her batteries, so to speak, and was actually full of energy and determined to get up to date with everything, to catch up with her ordinary life, even though she had only been ‘off work’ for two nights and a day in between effectively.
    He soon realized he was going to be her chauffeur this morning, taking her to all the places she needed to go to, before even getting home for a nice cup of tea and some lunch! Oh well, he was in for quite a ride, it seemed, even though he was the one doing the driving. On top of all this, it was his birthday, and she had not forgotten that fact. So he did not quite know what was in store for him today (last year they had ended up in a stylish ice cream and sweets parlour near Meadowhall, of all places!), not that he expected anything in particular. Why should he when she had just had a small surgery?

23/8/25
  She made him drive to one or two places to pick things up from little shops, and to daughter in law's, then she made him park outside the hairdresser's near daughter in law's, to pay for haircuts the two young male grandkids had had recently, which she, Grandma, was still due to pay for. (She even had the cheek to borrow cash off Alfred, as she was only wearing her dressing gown!) Despite wearing her dressing gown she was quite happy to go into the hairdresser's with the borrowed money to pay, then she came out with the lady hairdresser to tell him she had really brought him here to have his, admittedly longish and unruly, hair tidied up, on his birthday (but as she only had her dressing gown on he would have to pay, even though it was his birthday!)
  Now there are not many things which Alfred, being a law abiding and understanding soul, really dislikes, but one of those things he does dislike is having his hair cut. He prefers to lop it off occasionally himself, to keep it under control, rather than submitting himself to the indignity of having someone else, who may not have his best interests or tastes at heart, do it to him.(Besides it is a lot cheaper that way, and less time consuming!) The last time he actually submitted to such an indignity might well have been just before his wedding to Mrs Muggins , a few years before, or perhaps it had actually been before their momentous cruise? a few years before, but a couple of years after the wedding, yes that must have been it! You see haircuts, to a man of his independence, are all about keeping up appearences, if you are obliged to, but only if you have to! 
   Naturally his first instinct was to put the car in reverse and drive off before he was forced to submit to anything he didn't really want to do. If he had done that he would have escaped, but would have left Mrs Muggins on the footpath in her dressing gown, only hours after her operation, which would have been not only very awkward, but also would have caused problems in their usually fairly solid marriage, and also would have been unthinkable when she had just had her little operation. His second instinct was to protest that he didn't really want a haircut, and anyway it was his birthday, and he shouldn't have to do anything he didn't want on his birthday, should he?
   Because the lady hairdresser was there he couldn't get too argumentative with his wife without losing face, and coming across very badly, so he decided he would have to surrender and submit (tactically, politically!) Admittedly his hair was a bit untidy at the moment. Perhaps he should have snipped a bit more of it off himself recently, to avoid such an embarassing situation. His wife had again caught him off guard (She knew him too well), and he had run out of excuses without losing too much face! 
   He therefore agreed to go in and have the haircut. He said he didn't want too much cutting off, just a little trim, he said, hoping that would be all it was. It was the polite foreign male hairdresser who was to do his, as he was male. 

12/1/25 / 16/1/25
   After the haircut he felt very cold , particularly around the ears, which had not been uncovered to such an extent for many years. Even the haircut he had had before their wedding a few years before had not left him so unprotected. As his glasses were off for the haircut he could not be sure of the full extent of the devastation to be seen in the mirror. He could have caused a scene by getting up from his seat and walking out before the barber had taken too much off, but Alfred was not, by nature a rude man. Politeness oozed from him whenever in public. He had been caught unprepared for his wife’s covert plan, on his birthday ,of all days, and tricked by a coalition of interests working against him, like an ambush. There was nothing he could do now to save himself.
  For some reason his wife preferred him not to be too unkempt and preferred to force him to deny his own image of himself, even on his birthday. At least it would make her happy, but he knew it would only serve to make him more reclusive, more humble, and less proud. All those old friends who he should be getting back in touch with as yet another Christmas approached, would now definitely have to wait. He wouldn’t want to be meeting any of them now his hair was cut really short, and he no longer looked like himself. And he wouldn’t be wanting to go to too many Christmas parties now while he didn’t look like himself. 
   Mrs Muggins, catching him unprepared after her minor operation, had managed to trick him out of his hair, just as Delilah had of Samson’s strength, and she had not even done it for the benefit of the Philistines. Well he wasn’t going to bring any pillars crashing down on the predecessors of the Gazans (territorially), he would just have to try to see the funny side of it, and keep as warm as possible in the soon to be much colder winter, by wearing his woolly hat, so no one outside would realise he had lost most of his hair. His only consolation might have to be that he did look just a bit more like an elf, or perhaps a Vulcan, as his ears were revealed as being reasonably large, but it was definitely an image left behind closed doors or under a hat, until it eventually grew back, but that would be months away now.

11/1/25
  He would have to make a mental note to remember that next time his birthday came up he should remember to ‘tidy up’ his own hair with a few well placed snips before Mrs Muggins could force or oblige him into having another hair cut. If he had already tidied it up himself she would have little desire or determination to force him into another haircut. He made a quiet pledge to never have another official haircut ever again. He was getting quite mature in years now, he had to admit, and might just be able to stretch it for the rest of his life, as long as there were no particularly special occasions coming up, which would demand, official or ‘proper’ haircuts, (particularly as there was no way he was going to be joining the army ,now that Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden, and Benjamin (Killer) Netanyahu, and that shady wanna be megalomaniac Xi Xinping, who looked more and more as if he was actually going to snuff out Taiwan’s independence any day soon now, were about to push the world into world war number three! On top of that the unstable, unpredictable and unreliable Donald (whose puppet?) Trump was about to take over the reigns of ‘the most powerful nation on earth!’
  It felt, to Alfred, that his precious world, on both the personal and particularly the geopolitical stages was falling apart. Decency, kindness, common sense, and humanity were being denied more and more every day! Democracy appeared to be teetering on the brink of collapse, and they were to be left merely with a choice between the rule of megalomaniacs, dictators and cronies on the one hand, and computers and business stooges on the other!
P.S.
12/1/25
  Another table broken up and disposed into the big skip on the drive. He had lost count of how many tables had gone to their after life thanks to the continual and frequent machinations of his wife Mrs Muggins, a lady most obsessed with tables. This one’s leg had come off a couple of months ago, and could not be fixed back on, even by the lodger, not even with glue.
  Alfred wished he was more of a figures a man than he really was. The trouble was he was far keener to write his novels and socio political diatribes and what ifs, than to quantify and record everything that went on in the household. Even if he had done it probably would not have mattered much to his wife. When she wanted a new, or thankfully more often, a secondhand table, she really went for it, every time. If he had kept the figures he might have persuaded his wife of just how wasteful they were being. The last one had actually cost them £700
  Or more and it had lasted perhaps a year and a half. (He had already forgotten!) 700/1.5 = £466.66 reoccurring per year. That was not a great rate of return, or rate of survival, or rate of destruction in his book, was it!