Monday, May 04, 2020

Updating my CV - Week 5

Once again I feel that, despite my best intentions to offer an amusing left-field approach to a pandemic, I need to retire as a satirist due to unfair competition from real life. I've pinched that quote before.

First televangelist Kenneth Copeland (anyone else think the surgeon did him no favours with those eyes?) blew the wind of God at the virus. Then somebody got hold of that audio and remixed it. Not heard it yet? Click here.

Then The Supreme Leader of the United States of America dropped enough hints that drinking bleach would cure COVID 19 to hospitalise 30 stoopid people. Meanwhile the camera panned to his medical adviser in the room and you can actually see, live on TV, the first recorded instance of someone's will to live leaving their body.

So we will content ourselves this week with an analysis of the goings-on in Tilley Mansions. I have explained before that TCMT and I can only work together if we clearly decide who will be in charge of each area of our life and the other person simply obeys. There is a clause 2 to this, which is that TCMT, not finding herself gainfully employed may, at any time of her choosing, decide that she is in charge of anything. Thus this conversation, based around the re-organisation of what I used to call 'my kitchen'. That is not arrogant or anything. For the last twenty five years or so I have been in charge of food production and distribution and all I ask is that TCMT provides me with a decent evening meal once a fortnight to give me a break. It could be argued that none of the rest of this piece is true. In fact it will be. Trust me.

I found her sorting out a cupboard. This never ends well.

Me: Why are the caraway seeds, the poppy seeds and the sesame seeds out on the work surface?
TCMT: They should be in the herb and spice cupboard so I'm moving them.
Me; No they shouldn't, they only get used for bread-making so I keep them in the baking cupboard with the flour and the yeast.
TCMT: That doesn't make sense
Me: (Not dropping to the 'nothing makes sense to you' level) It works for me.
TCMT: When did you last make bread?
Me: A while ago, all the more reason to have the ingredients where I remember when I get back to it.
TCMT: (Deadly silence and death look)
Me: If I put them in the door of the spice cupboard will that be OK?

I know I give in too easily but the sex is good and I enjoy that fortnightly meal.

I gained what I laughingly call my revenge when I gently enquired if she had seen the piece of paper I keep in the drawer by the tele with a list of where we've got to in various box sets and TV series. She segued from no (how dare you accuse me), through maybe (I wonder if that was what I wrote on during the quiz0 to 'Here it is' having found it in her study paper-recycling box. We pause for a moment to wonder why several other bins and recycling opportunities were passed on the journey to her study, but only a moment as whys and wherefores do not live near here. Anyway, I got my list back and also one of the discarded biros which 'doesn't work'. It works.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the re-organised baking cupboard (three shelves) has annexed the jam and pickles cupboard and has its eyes on the pasta/rice shelf. Also, my big pasta pan has gone, replaced by a slow cooker we haven't used yet.

TCMT: 'It's in the garage, do you want it?'
Me: No, but I wanted to know where it had gone.
TCMT: Why?
Me: It saves anguish when you eventually need it.
TCMT: (Deadly silence and another look, one I have never really pinned down)

I wouldn't be so brash as to suggest this is an insight into my failure to understand women. I am trying to understand one woman, a task now occupying a fifth decade.

In a couple of hours we may have another conversation:

TCMT: Your writing about the kitchen tidying isn't fair.
Me: Then write your own version. You'll have to learn to use some other keys apart from exclamation marks.
TCMT: Stop trying to change my style.
Me: (Deadly silence and desperate attempt not to look smug, which fails)

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