My Wife thinks I'm a Magpie

 

A couple of weeks back my daughter, with the tactical support of her mum, launched a full-scale clean-up of her bedroom. Think "Marie Kondo," but with less zen minimalism and more “bin bags bursting at the seams.” These bags were ceremoniously dumped in the living room, forming a small landfill site by the couch where I was nobly stationed, checking emails on my phone (a vital contribution to household chores, obviously).

Down she came with one last bag. As it hit the floor, I heard a familiar clink-clink-clink. The sound of glass bottles. But not just any bottles. I knew that sound.

“That’s nail polish,” I said, narrowing my eyes like Sherlock catching a clue.

“Yeah,” she shrugged. “Binning some I don’t want anymore.”

“Oh? Any nice colours in there?” I asked, casually—though inside I was already halfway into that bag like a raccoon in a dumpster.

“Dunno. Have a look.”

That was all the invitation I needed. Within seconds, there I was, crouched over the bag, head plunged inside like I was searching for buried treasure. My eyes widened at the sight of glittering bottles. Blues, golds, silvers, sparkles! I became Gollum in a grey hoodie: my precious.

One by one, I rescued them, holding each up to the light for inspection like a jeweller appraising diamonds. Fifteen bottles in total survived their brush with death. Fifteen! Each stashed safely away before my daughter returned.

When she did, I asked why she was throwing away perfectly good bottles of joy.

“Don’t use them anymore. Got better colours now,” she said.

“Nowt wrong with these,” I muttered. “I’m keeping the good ones.” 

She just smirked, shook her head, and vanished back upstairs, probably to write “Dad’s a weirdo” in her journal.

But the nail polish wasn’t all. Oh no. There were perfume bottles in the bag too, supposedly “empty.” One, however, a bottle of Twilight Mauve by Zara, still sloshed with life. I sprayed it into the air and thought, Not bad at all. Another successful rescue.

Later that evening, my daughter gleefully snitched on me.

“Mum! Dad’s been raiding the bin bag! He’s took out some nail polishes”.

"You're a Magpie you are!" she exclaimed. "You just can't help yourself can you". 

“A magpie?” I protested. “I’m not wasting perfectly good polish.”

“How many have you got, then?” she asked.

“Just a couple,” I said, smiling innocently.

“Like shite, you've more than a couple” she replied. “You’re a hoarder.”

I decided not to mention the perfume. Some confessions require… timing.

That perfume now lives in the boot of my car and if I forget to spray my wrist with Jimmy Choo's Blossom before leaving the house, I have this as a backup.

The reason I wanted to share this story is because it demonstrates why I'm different.  No normal man would prick his ears at the sound of nail polish bottles clinking, and be compelled to investigate it further. He definitely wouldn't be looking to keep them for himself nor would he be interested in the perfume.  I'm pretty certain too that he wouldn't be stashing it in his car so he could spray it on himself.  

Its these actions that keep me happy, I feel that they help me stay in touch with my feminine side and I wouldn't change my behaviour for the world.  Not that anyone is asking me to, but sometimes I wonder if it's just me who behaves like that.

By the way, magpies aren’t actually attracted to shiny objects. That stereotype comes from folklore—and Rossini’s 1815 opera The Thieving Magpie, where a maid nearly hangs for stealing silver, only to be saved when it turns out a magpie had been nicking the items all along.

A photo of some of those rescued