Right. I have spent the weekend with my parents. It’s time to talk about the #scarab.

I wrote a blog post about this years ago but, frankly, who even reads things that aren’t tweets any more? Why do you think all the libraries are now avocado on toast kitchens, and Waterstones is Just A Bin?

Years ago – likely more than a decade – I received a present from my father for Christmas. So far, so standard.
(At this point, I feel like I should mention who my father actually is. He is fiercely funny (though my mother is the darker one by far), and is responsible for my-

-tremendous love of puns. Yes. He is the one to blame. He is a good man, full of mischief and nonsense, and he’s worked as an ice cream man, made snooker tables, been a detective, sold second hand clothes, been a private detective, and more. A rich tapestry etc)

The present was something he had bought from a discount warehouse in Coventry. The sort of place that sells car batteries, cookware, and children’s toys, each more flammable than the last. Big fan of bargains, my dad. The sort of chap who would buy eight pairs of the same shoe-

-if it were a “bargain”. My brothers and I own more skiing jackets than we know what to do with. As far as I’m aware, none of us have been skiing.

Basically he is the sort of man who treats TKMaxx like a revered holy site, and god above, if he ever finds a shop in an industrial estate selling slightly buggered garments, prepare for a bumper haul.

(Incidentally, I believe this particular discount warehouse is owned/operated by the descendants of Oswald Mosley. Coventry, eh?)

Christmas Day, he hands me my present. Inside the carefully-wrapped paper, is a paperweight.

Now, you may remember that my father had previous form when it comes to paperweights: https://twitter.com/brainmage/status/1004667493338812417?s=21

So hopefully you can understand my trepidation.

Luckily, this particular paperweight contained no genetic material/preserved patriarch that I could tell. So far, so good.

Instead, this particular objet d’arse was in the shape of a scarab beetle. This was slightly surprising, as I’ve never at any point expressed any interest in entomology, Egyptology, or any arcane intersection thereof.

Also: how windy does he think my house is?

I don’t want to sound ungrateful for a second, of course, but realistically, it’s the 2000s. Paper isn’t really a...thing, is it? And if it’s sufficiently gusty to blow an iPad about the place, my problems are bigger than can be solved with an insect-shaped chunk of resin.

Anyway. I thanked him, despite being perplexed, and resigned myself to owning a large, black, scarab beetle surely produced by the billion in some ghastly factory overseen by a demonic foreman.

“Thank you, dad! It’s a...scarab beetle paperweight! It’s...just what I’ve always...a paperweight.”

A couple of months later, it was his birthday. Possibly his sixtieth? A fairly big one, anyway. I thought it was important to get him something meaningful. Something that would show him how much I appreciated him, and all he has done for me.

You may or may not be aware that I’m quite keen on watches. Practical, decorative, and can last for years.

I bought a lovely watch, all fancy without being overstated, kept it for myself, put the scarab in the box, wrapped it up, and gave it to my father for his birthday.

It’s always nice to see an example of “oh you shouldn’t have! Oh...you didn’t...” in real life. You don’t get that too often.

Next month, it was my birthday.

You can see where this is going, right?

It was war.

Over the next few years, this bloody paperweight bounced its way back and forth in increasingly elaborate ways. I hollowed out a cake for his birthday, wrapped the scarab in clingfilm and hid it inside. “This cake’s gone stale, Guy” he said, cutting into it-

-“oh you bastard”, he continued, as the penny dropped.

At one point, I was preparing to drive to Kent to see my then girlfriend. A good five or six hour drive from Coventry.

“Have you checked the oil in your car, Guy?”
“Dad. It’s fine.”
“Yeah, but have you checked your engine though?”
“Dad. It’s fine. I need to get going!”

One long and unusually rattly journey later, I pull into my gf’s place, stop the car, and open the bonnet.

There’d been some odd noises over the course of the journey. I’m no car-knower, but something wasn’t right.

Of course, gaffer-taped to what I assume was an important part of the engine, was the scarab.

As I’ve long said: is it even a running joke if there’s no danger of death?

Every family occasion became fraught with peril. Every birthday, funeral, visit and outing was suddenly a tense and terrifying time. Was that an affectionate hug? Or has something been slipped into my pocket? Is that *really* a jar of jam, or does a becondomed beetle lie within?

One particularly memorable time, I was driving my sketch group to a gig, reached down to grab a tissue from the door well, and shouted “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THAT FUCKING BEETLE BASTARD BASTARD BASTARD”.

The other guys didn’t know that I had just found the scarab.

In fact, I’m fairly sure that they thought they were all going to die.

When I turned thirty, I went to the zoo. @FrogCroakley and @Glitter_brawl made me a “watch” - a large IKEA clock, hand-illustrated, and glued to a water-wing, snorkel, and pair of goggles.

It was only later, when the water-wing deflated, did I realise what was inside.

My friends had been compromised. It was like being a really low-budget Soviet spy. Sleeper agents were everywhere. The Mata Hari of discount stationery. Nobody could be trusted.

My own brother - my own brother - was recruited. Turned against me to secrete the fucking thing about my person on a visit to London.

Light fittings. Footware. Mugs. Ceiling voids. The scarab got everywhere. A two-sided war of nonsense and escalation.

Twentieth of September, 2014. @Wangleberry and I got married in Saltaire. It was a lovely day, surrounded by friends and family. After a night of drinking and dancing, my wife and I returned to our hotel room, our first night as a married couple.

Surprises in the bedroom can be exciting. Saucy, even. The Wedding Night is traditionally a night of passion and joy.

It is NOT traditionally a night of throwing back the duvet, laying eyes on an all-too-familiar lump beneath the bottom sheet, and shouting “Bastard Dad bastard scarab my own bastard wedding night”.

And yet that is how I found myself.

Then again, I should have seen it coming. His speech at the reception included a poem that he had written about love and marriage.

“S is for sweetheart, finding the person who’s yours.
C is for care, Tobi Dong love and support,
A is for...”

And so. Fucking. On.

Look at him. Plotting. Probably encouraging my nephew to pickpocket my room key so he could carry out his evil bidding.

(Yes. That obviously should have been “providing” and not “Tobi Dong”.)

This has continued to this day. There have been times when I worried that it had been lost, and I became genuinely heartbroken. How weird that I am so emotionally connected to a useless hunk of plastic.

My folks have moved house twice since the scarab began, and each time I became desperately afraid that it had vanished forever, an abrupt end to some delightful, whimsical nonsense.

“We don’t know where it is, Guy. We thought you had it?”

Of course, this was revealed to be another fucking ruse.

Which brings us to today. I spent the weekend with my parents, after not seeing them for a long time. Wales is a hell of a drive, after all.

I’m fairly sure that the last appearance of the scarab was when I offloaded it to my father at my grandfather’s funeral. When it comes to sleight of hand, carrying a coffin is a god damn pro move.

On the way to a physio appointment this morning, I called my parents to thank them for a lovely weekend, and to joke about looking through my luggage for the scarab. I was fairly sure it had been lost, and the joke was simply that.

Of course, when I then phoned Cat to complain about being out in the rain, I noticed that the lines of my coat were not as sharp as they usually are.

The fucker. The bastard. The swine. Hidden in an inside pocket, beneath a slice of parkin, to obscure the shape.

The rat. The scoundrel.

And now here we are. I’m heading into work with the weight of this bloody thing reminding me that he has once again managed to get the other hand. Sitting on a bus, and looking at Brompton Cemetery

Which makes me wonder.

My father had me quite late in life. He’s in his 70s now, shorter than I remember, and with a shock of white hair.

There’s a finite number of times the scarab is going pass between us. There always was, of course, but the number feels lower these days.

Do...do I bury it with him?

If I do, that’s that. I take the prize. Score one for Kelly junior.

But then, if I do, and if I ever have kids of my own, I lose the chance to share that with them. This physical representation of their grandfather’s silliness. His playful sense of humour. And, possibly, a chance to give it to them one day, and keep that nonsense torch alight.

Also, if I do bury it with him, I honesty wouldn’t put it past the bastard to have written something in his will. Some sort of clause to have the body exhumed at some point in the future, so one day I get a knock on the door, and a package handed to me from beyond the grave.

But if I *do* keep it...

He will have won. And I can’t have that.

This scarab, this ridiculous piece of bargain warehouse junk, is the most important thing that I own. While the paperweight containing the headlumps provides a piece of my father in a brute, biological way, this is a piece of who he _is_, not the meat he’s made from.

So here I am. Sitting on a bus in the rain, thinking about life, love, legacy, and the logistics of organising a courier to deliver a parcel to a restaurant while they’re out for a meal.

Thanks, Dad. Turns out this _is_ just what I’ve always wanted.

~Fin~

If you enjoyed this, & fancy doing so, you can be like FuzzyFreaks & Helen, & shout me a coffee here: https://ko-fi.com/kelly  (thanks, you two!), but do not feel obliged!

If you're like that one guy who said "too long, should have been about poop", feel free to dick right off :D

Thanks CC, Kirsty and Kirstian! You can also now log in to ko-fi and access my hour-long solo show about mental health, toxic masculinity, and how close the world has come to nuclear war!

Thanks you, W David, Sendhil, and Madison! You’re lovely people and I hope your hair is ace today x

Cheers, Jeremy. I hope you see a really good dog today x

Thanks Jenny! I can only assume that you have great hair

Thank you Claudia! My dad is going to be *baffled* when he hears about all this.

Camille, you're lovely. Thank you!

Thanks Jorinde, much appreciated :)

Aww, cheers Beci. Glad I can bring a spot of joy x

Thank you, Mica. Delighted that so many people enjoyed this, and super grateful of those who have shot me a couple of quid. Not so grateful for the guy who’s response was “too long, not funny, and should have been about poop”, but you can’t win ‘em all, eh?

Aww, thank you, John!