“HAVE YOU GOT A CHILD UNDER 8 YEARS OF AGE??”
This was the desperate phrase I repeated to crowds of rugby fans as they entered the stadium.
Everyone poured through the gates while I faced upstream like the panic-stricken woman in a movie who has lost her child. Or, in this case, wanted to barter for someone else’s.
Armed with leaflets, I needed to make these men enter their child into a competition.
I needed to EXPLAIN it. I needed them to take a pen, stand next to me, fill out the form for their child “OR ANY CHILD YOU KNOW DOESN’T HAVE TO BE YOURS!!!” and give me the competition entry. This is very difficult when the flow of human traffic is fast and deliberate. They were here for rugby. Not for writing.
Despite the branded T-shirt (size Tent), the yellow baseball cap (style Non) and the stack of leaflets, my task was interpreted as a come-on. Jolly good.
I was in prime position to secure myself a string of dates with single dads in possession of children under 8. Or 9, just outside the criteria and requiring consolation.
At half time I was required to lurch into action again. I reprised my role as child-obsessed-lady and interrupted to groups of men drinking beer to, once more, ask if they knew anybody under the age of 8. Not since I last saw them apparently.
By the end of the day I’d got rid of the leaflets and had only verbal assurance that the rugby men would “take a look”. The event manager was happy with that and paid for a Diet Coke in a little room near the rugby pitch for us all.
I went home. I can’t remember if this was the point at which I decided to change my life… It was probably one of many…
Average Brunette 