I’m more puffed up than a fall sweater in a closet full of moths over the way the mainstream media and their followers are obsessing over who Harry Styles swaps spit with!

Why just the other day, my youngest, Yvette, was gobsmacked over getting a ticket to see the English singer-songwriter at Madison Square Garden. (A $300 ticket, I might add!) My eldest son Maurice belted out at the supper table that Harry is a poofter—for those born after 1990, poofter means homosexual. Greta, my wife, nodded in agreement but said he could also just be ‘queer-baiting’. 

With a blank look on my face I asked Greta: “What in the heck is queer baiting?”

My college educated wife clearly had one over on me with her fancy Liberal magazine subscription to both People and US Weekly. She explained that Harry is possibly only pretending to be gay or bi or pan or whatever in order to get more fans and be in on the latest trend of being trans. Greta says from her research that the hottie preferred sausages over oysters, despite having no Reuter’s fact check to back it up. 

Poor Yvette seemed shocked. She believed she was going to marry Harry one day. I mean, she had everything Harry Styles: posters, bedsheets, T-shirts, a Spotify playlist (whatever that is), even a phone case that had the British bum bandit’s face on it. “I’m not going then,” she pouted like a diva, and stormed away from the table. 

“Why does it matter which way Styles swings?” I debated. “It’s not like he’s our friend coming over for supper.” Just then there was a knock at the door. We all looked over, expecting the British bottom to appear, but instead it was only old grey-haired Mr. Wong with our mail that had been accidentally delivered to his house.

“Your mail come to wong house. Address different on envelope but truly you on inside,” said my pal from the Pacific. But maybe he had a point, not just about mail but about males.

DANCING QUEEN

If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s seeing my lovely daughter upset. A second thing I can’t stand is seeing my $300 being flushed down the toilet. “Well,” I announced to Greta, Maurice and Mr. Wong, “then I’ll go see Harry Styles and report back about his sexuality.”

“You’re going to a Harry Styles concert?” Maurice said, both him and my wife laughed.

“How gay!” Mr. Wong said. He often said the wong thing at the wong time.

“I’ll have you know that back in my day,” I announced proudly. “I went backstage at a Rolling Stones concert.” Eat your heart out, Prime Minister Trudeau.

IT’S RAINING MEN

About an hour before show time, I fired up my old Lenovo Thinkpad and watched a few videos of this watermelon sugar heart throb. I admit the songs were catchy, his fashion inspiring, and, boy, is he a good looking fellow, a modern day Carey Grant—if you ask me. I learned that Harry started out solo, but joined a boy band then got into acting. And, like Careful Carey, Harry kept his flamboyant private life secret. That said, he was no stranger to rumours and gossip about who woke up in his brass bed. 

I donned my Culture Club summer tour 1986 tank top, (still fits!) the tightest black pants I could find, teased what little hair I had left, and even grabbed Greta’s old boa for good measure. 

“You look like one of those drag queens at the local library,” Greta said.

I blew my wife a kiss and hopped into my Uber.

I’M COMING OUT

Well, folks, I never knew what I’d been missing. I danced and sweated and sang along—even though I didn’t know the lyrics—all night at MSG. I met a great group of guys who gave me a pink pill that made me feel like I was in ecstasy, or maybe that’s what they called it. I only blacked out for a bit but woke up safe and sound in the mens room thanks to some fine young men in skirts who found me there. After adjusting my oddly unzipped pants, me and the boys all went back to one of their Greenwich Village lofts where we made margaritas and danced in the living room, while watching One Direction videos. One guy even used Greta’s boa to lure me into the bedroom where we jumped on the bed all night long!

What a night!!!

I rolled into my house at about three am feeling totally awake and full of love. I crawled into bed with Greta.

“So, is Harry a jobby jabber?” she mumbled half asleep.

“No idea.” I had forgotten what my mission had been. Then I rambled on until six in the morning about the concert, the pink pill, the nice group of men who called themselves the “Friends of Dorothy,” and the after party where I got the best Swedish massage I’d ever had. (I’ve never tasted meatballs so saucy!) 

I said: “I don’t care which way Harry swings because after two and half years of lockdowns and masking and jabbing and government propaganda all I really needed was a good night to feel alive again.”

And there’s no closet Harry Styles needs to come out of to make me not want to do that all over again.

Unfortunately Greta had fallen asleep hours before, so I was mostly talking to myself as well as an elfen creature who I’d never noticed had been living in our bedroom all these years. 

And that’s all the fairy Harry woke I can rub out this week.