If Midas had liked pink...

Dear Dave,

Marie has some new gloves. You probably won't be surprised to learn that they're pink.

Really pink.

Even better than that, they're fluffy and sparkly. They also shed. We're not talking the odd ball of fluff and an occasional thread here. Whatever she goes near looks like it got caught in a fight between Fuchsia-Fun Barbie and a My Little Pony. I swear the things have already left more fibres on the hall carpet than they originally contained and yet they're still producing a shower of pixie down every time she takes them off.

I have to assume the fuzz is self-replicating. The only reason the gloves haven't grown into giant puffballs is because she keeps wearing them and dissipating them as a trail of gleaming motes wherever she goes. If they get put away over the summer, I'm going to be in real trouble come the autumn. I'll open the hall cupboard, hunting for the kids' winter clothes, and the accumulated build-up of fairy dust will explode from it in an eruption of rosy gossamer, covering the entire contents of the house in six inches of glittering fallout. I'll be left standing there, blinking, looking like the Pink Panther after a session in the tumble-dryer...

It's all rather worrying. Nonetheless, it has to be said that Marie does now add a little sparkle to everything she touches. Deep down, I'm a bit jealous. I kind of hope that one day the same could be said about me.

(But in a sense which involves much less hoovering and laundry, obviously...)

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.