In Actual Fact…

My mother is a registrar. That means she registers births, deaths and conducts weddings that are not in church. Somewhat disturbingly, the most common place she conducts weddings is at Alton Towers. Now, I spent a summer working at Alton Towers, dressed up in an eight-foot tall dog costume scaring the shit out of small children. Actually, that’s not entirely true, they were mostly horrible shell-suit clad little twats who would try and kick me, and the dog-suit made me even more uncoordinated than usual and I found it hard to retaliate.
For those of you who don’t know and haven’t clicked the link, Alton Towers is one of the UK’s biggest theme parks; it could well be the biggest. It’s a plastic nightmare where small children who are inevitably called Chardonnay or something equally ghastly (“Kevin” was most common when I was there), abuse people in dog costumes who are nervous enough as it is waiting for their A Level results. I’ll let you imagine for yourself the kind of people who choose to conduct their nuptials at a place where McDonald’s provides the catering. All I’m going to say is that my mother has received several official complaints because she can be heard quite clearly on videos of ceremonies making snooty comments about the bride/groom/eight-foot high dog, whose standing in as the best man.
As of some time in the very near future, my mother will also be conducting commitment ceremonies for same-sex partners. Amazingly, bearing in mind my mother’s somewhat conservative views, she’s volunteered to do this (many registrars have refused), in fact several lesbian couples have asked for her by name as they’ve heard by word of mouth that she’s so “nice and understanding”. None of them will be held at Alton Towers. Say what you want about lesbians having bad taste (ahem), now that they can at least have commitment ceremonies they seem to be going for understated elegance. They don’t even make bridal Birkenstocks.
Anyway, that was just my mind in free flow upon thinking of Alton Towers, this was meant to be about a conversation I had with mother. She was enthusiastically informing me that she had a copy of Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit on DVD.
“But it’s not out yet”, I said.
“One of the regulars at the registrars gave it to me for helping so often.” she replied.
I considered admonishing her about copyright theft, but was more worried about the implications – my mother receives illicit material in return for “helping so often”.
“How often is ‘often’?” I asked.
“Oh, about once a week”, she replied.
Eek! My mother is a registrar. She “helps out” a “regular”, once a week. What does she do in return? Register deaths “no questions asked”?
I’m not sure I want to know – but I’ve asked her to post me the DVD.

German Phrase For Today: “Kaninchen” - Tasty
Song playing as this was published: Crowded House - “Better Be Home Soon”