Corrupting my children with the dice (Part 1)

Our daughter Sophie is trying to raise money to fund an overseas student nursing placement somewhere more exotic than Camberwell. 

Amy Winehouse

She is a talented artist with too much common sense to do her first choice Fine Art, what with the economy on its arse and fees of £27,000. Her muse is, however, undiminished. So she is selling new bespoke designs (canvas framed, with fabric and inked vellum).

Yet shouting ‘PLEASE BUY MY STUFF’ on Facebook invites scorn from assorted rich brats, talentless oiks and haters (who are nevertheless also 'friends').

Negotiating your image is now so much more complicated than when it simply depended on whether you could afford Levi Strauss jeans or did the sartorial walk of shame in Tesco Delamare... REJECTS!

These situations provide a rare and diminishing use for parents and on seeing a new Amy Winehouse-styled creation on her wall, I wrote:

"I'm glad to see you producing art again Sophie... technically, I really like what you've done with this and the pigeon.  Are they just for your wall or are you selling them? They're easily good enough IMO. On that point, do you take commissions? If so, I'd quite like a 'Dice Man' for my wall. If you wanted to play my current game, we could let the die decide the price. Say:
1=£0  2=£10  3=£20  4=£30  5=£40  6=£50"

Dice Man

As a naff ‘rent, I can gush over my progeny’s work and suggest its saleability, safe in the knowledge that any cool points I think I have are entirely illusory. Sure enough, within hours, I was looking at a photo of my personalised Dice Man. This  just left the die to value the latest addition to my art collection. We live 35 miles apart and this scenario was revealing about my perceived trustworthiness. I had thought that as a loving dad, I could simply be trusted to report the result of the throw. In the end, we settled on Skype, with the webcam orientated to prevent the shaker leaving Sophie’s view when the die was rolled.






To emphasise the seriousness of the occasion, I devised some impromptu ceremonial words for us to use:

Do you <insert name> submit to the will of the die completely and irrevocably, for richer, for poorer and promise not to whinge if you get bugger all?

Yes, I <insert name> submit to the will of the die etc.

As an aside, I now understand why Luke Rhinehart included all that liturgical claptrap in The Dice Man. Codswallop or not, such rituals seem to provide useful gravitas when you suspect your daughter might cry foul or your dad might try to shaft you.

Pigeon

Happily, we rolled a <4>. 

In case anyone reading this is now tempted to buy their own ‘Sophie Original’, I had thought £30 was actually about the right price. Alternatively, prospective buyers may find they have to submit themselves to the roll of the die. 

That would be a matter entirely for Sophie...and you.