EVEN if you are destined to be a loser who comes last at everything, there are certain firsts in life that you cannot escape.

Like your first tottering footsteps as a toddler, or your first staggering footsteps home from the pub after your maiden visit.

Then there's the first visit of the tooth fairy (in Esther Rantzen's case it was the tusk fairy) when you lose a milk tooth and check under the pillow for a cash reward for being careless. What is it these days, fifty quid?

Remember the first day your dad took the stabilisers off your two-wheeler and you were pedalling away, free forever, confident that he was still holding on to the saddle? Then you looked back and saw he was a hundred yards behind and suddenly your handlebars started to wobble dangerously.

There's the first time you go to school, knowing that you won't cry but your mum will; the first school report that says "can do better, has the ability but will not apply himself"; the first Sunday night depression because you've left Friday night's homework right to the wire.

The first time a distant relative dies you don't know whether to be sad, pretend to be sad or get on with your life.

Then there's the first discovery of your body and a date with a girl/boy, preferably not both at the same time; and the first time you get laid - up with chicken pox.

Life is a series of firsts but surely nothing can prepare you - even in adulthood - for the first time you leave the kids home alone.

My recent holiday in the sun was a nightmare, not just because it was the first time I'd been stuck with my wife for two whole weeks, but because I had never left my daughter to babysit the house before.

After the first four days of ringing home each night to say "how are you?" (meaning how's the house?), my little girl told me not to ring so often because I was a pest. When I reduced the calls to every three days, the time in between was intolerable.

I've got to say she's a steady kid, but accidents will happen. I imagined arriving home to find the fire service spraying over the ashes, or finding teenage louts comatose all round the house after the wildest party with no time to thumb through Yellow Pages to find a French polisher. I actually got home to find the house immaculate (I searched the place for signs of orgies with more passion than a jealous husband looking for clues of adultery), carpets vacuumed to perfection, cooker sparkling without a burned crust, front door still on its hinges.

After an hour, though, my daughter confessed to a little accident.

She'd tried to wash a Coca Cola stain off the settee and dry it with her hair dryer. Trouble was, she was distracted and burned a huge hole right through the main cushion, foam and all.

Thanks, I said, just the opportunity I needed to buy a new three-piece suite. Which is why we broke a sacred rule and went out shopping on a Bank Holiday.

So off we drove to a famous purveyor of sofas and stuff, and found them handing out champagne. They're not daft. They know just when to refill your glass, invite you to revel in the luxury of a particularly-squidgy settee, and suggest: why not put your feet up? Wifey's impressed, husband's bored, salesman's razor sharp - and the deal is done without you even noticing the jagged pain in your plastic.

Outside, there's someone dressed as a giant Easter bunny handing out tiny gifts so that the children will drag mum and dad into Eggs-R-Us; there are wrinkled balloons outside a store selling designer trainer shoes, and more lambs to the slaughter are creating traffic jams as they pile into the shopping precinct to be bamboozled and fleeced, just like me.

OK, so I am a cynic. Trouble is, no matter how old we get, there's always a first time just around the corner. We never learn, do we?

Updated: 08:37 Tuesday, March 29, 2005