Who's The Daddy: We were once out out, now it’s lights out before nine
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that with the kids grown and flown, me and The Boss would revert back to our 1990s social butterfly days and be out every other night painting the town 50 shades of beige.
The thing is, and it’s quite hard to believe, but the 1990s finished almost 26 years ago now and the clothes we wore and records that soundtracked our carefree days are now seen as vintage by people today who are well into their 30s.
If anything, now that the clocks have gone back and it feels like it goes dark in the middle of the afternoon, hibernation until early April 2026 sounds like a prudent option.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s yours truly barely noticed the passing of the seasons, apart from the football season, obviously. Stadiums’ powerful floodlights illuminated my late afternoons and nights, along with the bright lights of bars and nightclubs.
Like The Boss at the time, nothing could keep us in the house. When we went out, everyone was our age and hangovers melted away like a light overnight frost - a distant memory by 10am.
Those days are over and have been for some time. On the rare occasion a cork is popped now, it’s a relaxing few sips to the sound of some 90s bangers that would’ve been seen as a gentle warm-up to a night “out out”.
Remember when you were a kid and your grannies and grandpas were up at 6am, jobs done by noon, dinner eaten at 5pm and tucked up and flat out by 9pm? Well guess what? They were right.
These days, what with our spin and supple strength classes kicking off before dawn - an insurance policy for 10-15 years’ time so we’ve got a fighting chance of getting back on our feet unaided after “a fall” - we currently keep the hours of medieval farmers. If a TV show starts after 9pm, forget it. Back in the 90s sleep was optional, now it’s medicinal.
But these old timey problems are unheard of for our daughters. While a night out watching The Orb at Kanteena in Lancaster this Saturday will be waaaaaaay past my bedtime, they really do party like it’s 1999.
Daughter #2’s cruise ship she’s working on that’s so big it’s the only man-made object visible from space is currently playing hide and seek with Hurricane Melissa as it batters Jamaica. At the time of writing Daughter #2 and her Caribbean shipmates are heading for Sint Maarten, which is around 900 miles away.
There’s nothing like dealing with someone else’s seasick kids, and there’s certainly nothing like scrubbing their vomit out of your laces after they’ve yakked up their dinner all down you either.
Three tours of duty in, Daughter #2 is pretty nonchalant about hurricanes now, like they’re some sort of occupational hazard like drizzle or shonky Wi-Fi. For mum and dad watching the news from behind the sofa, it looks and feels like the apocalypse.
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