BY JOHN ANSELL
Today the daddies rule the world,
Or so the mummies say,
But back in ancient Egypt
It was round the other way.
The mummies were survivors
And of daddies there’s no trace,
i.e., archeologically,
The mummies won the race.
Every time they lift the lid
On some Egyptian tomb
Is it daddies they dig up? Oh no!
It’s mummies they exhume.
Mummies, mummies everywhere
All parcelled up in white;
Mummies by the million
And not a dad in sight.
Whatever did the mummies do
To warrant this attention?
The dad’s just built the pyramids
Yet hardly get a mention.
So where did all the daddies go?
How come you never see ’em?
Why is it just the mummies
On display in the museum?
Why mummies? Why not daddies?
Can it be the rumour’s true
That one day every daddy
Must become a mummy too?
(But wait: if every daddy
Is a mummy when he dies
Then half those so-called mummies
Must be daddies in disguise.)
It seems to be the destiny
Of each Egyptian daddy
To finish as a lady
What he started as a laddy.
One mum who was a daddy
Was the mighty Queen of Sheba
Who, it is said, before being dead
Was called the King of Heba.
Yes, each and every daddy,
On the evidence that’s offered us,
Must first become a mummy
To be kept in a sarcophagus.
He may have a daddy’s body
And his friends may call him Fred,
But this dad you see is bound to be
A mummy when he’s dead.
Suppose this poor old Dad was you:
I bet you’d be alarmed
To learn you’re due to turn into
A mummy when embalmed.
Such news would be a blow
To any daddy of the Nile,
Who’d find his future ladyhood
Quite hard to reconcile.
So do they tell him bluntly
That he’ll spend eternity
Not as a pharaoh, like he thought,
But more like a phairee?
Or do they keep a daddy
In the dark about the dangers
Of Egyptian undertakers
Making posthumous sex-changes?
I think I know what I would do
If I was in his sandals:
Hire Cairo’s finest lawyer
To defend me from these vandals.
I’d have him plead a legal need
In language intellectual
To circumvent a late attempt
To render me transsexual.
With skill he would persuade the judge
To act without compunction
And slap upon these mummies’ boys
A permanent injunction.
And, just in case, I’d warn him:
“Do not violate this pact!
Cos I’ll haunt your sleep unless you keep
My daddyhood intact.”
This said, I’d feel secure
That I could now be laid to rest,
But just before I shuffled off
I’d make one last request:
“Build a coffin with my face on, sir,
That’s nice and snug inside,
And bandage me so I will be
Forever daddified.”
