Twelve days (It takes two): Day 4

Christmas at Ryan’s work was in full swing, decorations covered every surface or at least it seemed that way to Ryan, and everyone had started to wind down ready for the break. It was company tradition to throw a small party at work, it was always held on the 23^rd December as most people didn’t want to hang around on Christmas Eve.  There were always nibbles and drinks and a Santa Claus for the fun factor. This year the lady who always organised every company event had fallen and broken her arm, so although she didn’t mind organising everything, any heavy lifting would need to be done by someone else and a rota had been drawn up. Ryan had hoped to have to help with the conference which he was attending, he had planned to skip the party this year, but he had been assigned to help her with the Christmas nibbles.

That was how Ryan came to find himself, on a Saturday morning, following Patricia along the aisles of the local cash and carry. Occasionally, she would turn and ask Ryan what he thought about things but his answers never seemed to please her, and she opted for the opposite of what he said, he wondered why she even bothered asking him in the first place.

Turning into the second to last aisle, Ryan was met with shelves full to the brim of baby items; nappies in huge packs of 100, bottles, dummies, baby food and even clothes. It was quite overwhelming and Patricia tugged Ryan’s arm and indicated that she was ready for the till.

“Just a moment Patricia…” Ryan was struck with inspiration. Number two on the list was to make sure that his child was fed; he could buy some of this food and baby milk, save a lot of money and not have to worry about food for the baby for a while. He checked the use by dates and decided to get some. Sarah would be very pleased, it would make up for the painting debacle, and she would have to accept that if anyone was ready to be a parent it was him.

“Erm…Ryan…are you sure you need all that?” asked Patricia.
“What? Oh yes, yes, its ok. I know what I am doing.”
Ryan had sweat dripping off his forehead and wiped it away with his sleeve, he had finally finished carrying all the baby food into the dining room, and it was the only place that had any space in for that quantity of stuff. He heard the key turning in the lock and rushed back quickly to the lounge where he flung himself on the sofa and pretended that he had been there all along. Ryan would surprise Sarah later after he had a chance to broach the subject, and when she said it was a good idea he would simply have to open the door and say tadaa!

“Hey Ryan, have you been laying on that sofa all evening?”
“Hey Sarah, no, I’ve been busy. Just having a few minutes with my feet up.”
“Well, I can hear Amber scratching at the door, have you taken her for a walk yet?”
“Oh, no, not yet. I’ll take her after the news.”
“She seems quite frantic Ryan, I’ll let her out in the garden, and then you can take her after the news”
“hmmm…yeah…ok”

Ryan was engrossed in something on the news, he would take Amber later, she was fine earlier, and she had just lain in her dog basket watching him do all the heavy lifting.

He sat up bolt right, Ambers dog basket was kept in the dining room and he must have shut her in there. He jumped up and headed to the dining room. Sarah was standing in the doorway motionless.
“Sarah! I was about to tell you, I wanted to surprise you.”
Her head turned slowly to look at him. Ryan gave a weak smile.
“Explain.”
“Explain, yes of course, I can explain. I went to the cash and carry today and I saw all this food for babies and it seemed like such a good buy that I thought, why not?”
“Why not? Let me see….half of this at least will be out of date by the time the baby is old enough to eat it and the rest, well, the rest is all the same flavour…”
Ryan hadn’t bothered to look at the flavour, he just saw the price and how much of a bargain it would be, he realised that he might have been a little hasty.
“Oh! I don’t think they do returns, it was an ‘everything must go’ sort of sale…”
“Let’s take it to the Food Bank, some families will be able to benefit from this, it’s not so bad.”
Ryan was relieved that it wouldn’t be wasted and knew that if anyone asked he would be saying that he bought it on purpose. What’s that saying? Charity starts at home.