Something shocking happened recently. The auld people went on a foreign trip recently leaving me and two brothers behind. To maintain anonymity, we will call one of my brothers Mr. B and the other Mr. T. Suddenly, we had to do some “adulting”. Like we’re only in our thirties and okay, maybe fortyish.

“Children are not just for Christmas,” we said. “Why can’t we come?”

The only response was some funny looks and something about us being old now. Old!? Imagine that.

They didn’t even warn us not to have parties. It’s like they knew we’d have nobody to ask to come.

All seemed to be going okay till Mr. B realized he had run out of clean underpants. Then Mr. T washed his clothes only. Mr. B flummoxed by the washing machine wanted a written guarantee that Mr. T wouldn’t mess up his clothes. This was a step too far for Mr. T.

So, there was a stand-off and the wearing of some dirty pants.

Fortunately, they were only gone for a few days so we thought it best not to ring Childline and report them for child neglect.

Apparently, they had a great time. They weren’t worried about us at all. We didn’t have the heart to tell them about the dirty pants.