I don't hate Father's Day but just its politics, aesthetics and excessively over-corrective marketing

Don't need trigger warnings; need less ads in my life x

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I whisper, feeling that cold dread gush in. It’s nothing serious; I’ve just stumbled across the greeting cards in my local WH Smith dedicated to the third Sunday in June. I was on my way to send a package, and it just sort of, you know, smacked me in the face.

As the chill settles in, I am comforted by my discomfort could possibly be down to the faulty security alarm, which goes off so frequently in here that it must be a labour law violation. A shop assistant wrestles with it and eventually stops it, but still the wind blows.

“Father’s Day is a capitalist construct,” I repeat, rolling my eyes. ‘We’ve been through this.’ 

I shake my head. Emoting in the nation’s oldest newsagent chain under fluorescent lighting, with nothing but Bear Grylls’ half-priced memoir for company, at the worst drivel celebrating the gender division of labour? I shake my head. Frederich Engels, I’m so sorry.

Couldn’t it be happening somewhere a bit more, well, cinematic?

Great, a fresh pang, as I recall, ‘Aftersun’ didn’t even get me like this. No, you don’t get it. You have no clue how petrified I was of it. All that hype, and, you know what, I was fine. Like, obviously, while Paul Mescal looks like he was carved from marble, I am not. But it finished, and I got on with my day.

‘Artistic integrity is supposed to matter.’

My mind casts itself back to the other day when I got an email, notable only because, with a tone supposed to convey care and concern, it pointed out that this day is tough for some people.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the message told me, offering the option to easily ‘opt out’ of further marketing materials. I found the song and dance so amusing. See, if I were the sort to, which perhaps, maybe embarrassingly, I am, I’d fire back some feedback, some constructive criticism, you know.

Something like, “Listen up, irrelevant corporation, you can’t do anything about this! You didn’t cause it, can’t control it and, funnily enough, you will not cure it. My ever-evolving stance on the themes you are trying to flog me has nothing to do with you. If you actually cared about my ‘wellbeing’, which is such a laughable suggestion, you’d stop clogging up my inbox with inane communications for the year’s other 364 days! Please remove me from all lists. Thanks x.”

Instead, something else caught my attention, probably something equally useless but whatever. Still, I get the emails, and they have to be greeted with a little chuckle because it’s so unbelievably stupid, isn’t it?

Here and right now, the funny's gone, and I wish it would come back. Being correct is no help. Neither is all my progress, all my work. Rubbing salt in the wound, adding to the burn, isn’t working. Unfortunately, you must let yourself be; allow the wave to take you under. Regrettably, even if you find the trigger gauche, naff and against your worldview.

Why am I admitting this? Probably because it annoys me, and irritation often motivates me like nothing else does. Also, the email was right: I’m not the only one with ‘DIfCuLT fEeLingS’, even manageable ones, about today. Anecdotally and for various reasons - like the strategic decision for companies to send these correspondences - I know this to be the case.

Selfishly, I also love it when others do it. Splashes of vulnerability, whether in real life or via the musings of writers like Shon Faye, are vital to me. Pay it forward, as one person’s overshare is another person’s lifeline.

The security alarm begins again, and a collective groan breaks out. I squeeze the parcel in my head and head towards the Post Office.

‘I don’t need to do any of this’, I think, giving one more stare down to the seasonal card display before I continue towards the Post Office.