Marriage Break-Up
We have a shelf in the kitchen. Well its more another piece of the counter where everything goes. You know the place. You have one. It holds everything from bottles to dog food to washing up powder. Well ours is a “Sustainability” shelf. The CEO of witchcraft and beauty is gone sustainability mad. Greener than Bruce Banner in a rage. All good, and I go along with it. Except….
Well I have to go back to our wedding. What? Sure nobody was going green then. Sure windmills weren’t even invented says you. You see we got this vase for a wedding present. Waterford Crystal or Galway Crystal or something. The thing is.. it was never very attractive. Some long since gone aunt of herself gave it to us and in fairness it probably looked well in a house of, well more mature years let’s say. But out of some form of guilt we couldn’t get rid of it. The main point is that herself loved it for the sentimental value it had in relation to the Aunt. Cigarettes had killed her. Never smoked a day in her life but fell down three steps outside the Players factory on the South circular road and died instantly. The aunt I mean.
You probably have another part of your house/apartment for these type of presents too. The vase in question would come out every now and again, births, birthdays, twenty firsts. Times when you got more flowers than a tulip stand in Amsterdam and you needed an extra vase to put them into. Beside a jam jar and an old wine bottle.
So the other week my beloved had asked some friends around. People who we hadn’t seen in ages. (There was this virus going around) and in their kindness they were all very eager to “get out” for an evening after such a long sojourn. The ladies in their best gunas and the men in the standard small check shirt with a logo, jeans and a pair of runners their kids should really be wearing. Lovely evening. The thing is, they all brought flowers. The hall was like Jurassic Park at one point and the smell of lilies was like the storeroom in the Bodyshop.
However the real problem landed the day before.
As all men will know when people are invited to the house, it is imperative that the driveway is cleared of all moss and every bathroom in the house is repainted, pebble-dashed and plastered as the visitors “will know.” One of these tasks included bringing the bottles to the bottle bank. To be honest it was grand as it got me out of the house while the hoover dishwasher and washing machine all competed with each other for my attention. There was also an intermediate football match on beside the bottle bank. So two birds and all that.
I know you are thinking where is he going with this? A shelf, a wedding, a few friends over and a jungle in his hallway. Well it all comes together shortly dear reader or should I say falls apart.
On the night with the guests, the flowers were getting ridiculous so at one point herself says, “Get the vase….the aunty Bridie one and put some in that.”
Of course me with a bottle opener entertaining everyone, nonchalantly replied with the most positive “Yes dear” because I was calm and able to deal with any eventuality that the evening could throw at me. So taking a bunch of triffids, (God forgive me they were awful) in one hand and a bottle of Lidl’s finest in the other I went in search of the vase. There were so many people and flowers in the place now I was like Indiana Jones at this point battling my way through a cave for a long lost vase from an ancient Tibetan dynasty. In the heel of the hunt I couldn’t find it.
I turned around and tried to catch herself’s eye but she was laughing away with some woman who I wasn’t sure who she was, but her husband is a very nice lad who sells cars and wears lovely shirts. The check type with….anyway, eventually in a moment of recognition or that extra sensory power that women possess, I did manage to catch her attention. “Where is the Vase?” I mouthed across the room. It looked more like, “whe..h…….its …..daw vahoz” I think the other woman thought I was having some medical emergency and started to ask was I alright.
My lovely wife reassured her and having the ability to interpret disabled she quite confidently, patted the woman’s forearm and nodded reassuringly that I was alright but just a little stupid.
“He’s just looking for something,” I could hear her say as she nodded and the other woman with the nice husband nodded back in unity. The “I have one too” of sympathy.
As if I hadn’t seen anything they both looked at me and smiling I was told “It’s on the shelf.”
I nodded and headed to the shelf with Medusa’s serpents in my hand but the vase was nowhere to be seen. In fact the shelf had never been cleaner. It hadn’t been cleaner since……Oh Jesus, yesterday…..the intermediate match,…..the bottle bank…..
It came back to me in slow motion. The white wine bottles – Crash! The green bottles – Crash! Me looking over because a goal was about to be scored….”Go on!” and then my hand noticing one of the bottles was not going in as easy as the others. The hole didn’t seem to be accommodating it as well as the others…..it wouldn’t, because it wasn’t a bottle or a jam jar but something that was to have the same fate as Aunty Bridie at the cigarette factory. I didn’t really notice because I was watching the match. I like to look on it as multi-tasking.
I could feel the heat on my neck. The glare. The x- ray vision burning, when you’ve been rumbled. Because extra sensory Wonder Woman could see exactly what my thought process was and how I was scrambling in my mind to work things out with pointed fingers trying to re-magic the missing vase.
She could also see the vase she left there yesterday was not there now and was probably being made into some glass duck to be given away in a ‘shoot three in a row and win a prize’ at Funderland next Christmas.
Her words were damning. No malice, but they said it all before she walked away.
“I see the shelf is clear…..”
“Crystal” says I.
We have a shelf in the kitchen. Well its more another piece of the counter where everything goes. You know the place. You have one. It holds everything from bottles to dog food to washing up powder. Well ours is a “Sustainability” shelf. The CEO of witchcraft and beauty is gone sustainability mad. Greener than Bruce Banner in a rage. All good, and I go along with it. Except….
Well I have to go back to our wedding. What? Sure nobody was going green then. Sure windmills weren’t even invented says you. You see we got this vase for a wedding present. Waterford Crystal or Galway Crystal or something. The thing is.. it was never very attractive. Some long since gone aunt of herself gave it to us and in fairness it probably looked well in a house of, well more mature years let’s say. But out of some form of guilt we couldn’t get rid of it. The main point is that herself loved it for the sentimental value it had in relation to the Aunt. Cigarettes had killed her. Never smoked a day in her life but fell down three steps outside the Players factory on the South circular road and died instantly. The aunt I mean.
You probably have another part of your house/apartment for these type of presents too. The vase in question would come out every now and again, births, birthdays, twenty firsts. Times when you got more flowers than a tulip stand in Amsterdam and you needed an extra vase to put them into. Beside a jam jar and an old wine bottle.
So the other week my beloved had asked some friends around. People who we hadn’t seen in ages. (There was this virus going around) and in their kindness they were all very eager to “get out” for an evening after such a long sojourn. The ladies in their best gunas and the men in the standard small check shirt with a logo, jeans and a pair of runners their kids should really be wearing. Lovely evening. The thing is, they all brought flowers. The hall was like Jurassic Park at one point and the smell of lilies was like the storeroom in the Bodyshop.
However the real problem landed the day before.
As all men will know when people are invited to the house, it is imperative that the driveway is cleared of all moss and every bathroom in the house is repainted, pebble-dashed and plastered as the visitors “will know.” One of these tasks included bringing the bottles to the bottle bank. To be honest it was grand as it got me out of the house while the hoover dishwasher and washing machine all competed with each other for my attention. There was also an intermediate football match on beside the bottle bank. So two birds and all that.
I know you are thinking where is he going with this? A shelf, a wedding, a few friends over and a jungle in his hallway. Well it all comes together shortly dear reader or should I say falls apart.
On the night with the guests, the flowers were getting ridiculous so at one point herself says, “Get the vase….the aunty Bridie one and put some in that.”
Of course me with a bottle opener entertaining everyone, nonchalantly replied with the most positive “Yes dear” because I was calm and able to deal with any eventuality that the evening could throw at me. So taking a bunch of triffids, (God forgive me they were awful) in one hand and a bottle of Lidl’s finest in the other I went in search of the vase. There were so many people and flowers in the place now I was like Indiana Jones at this point battling my way through a cave for a long lost vase from an ancient Tibetan dynasty. In the heel of the hunt I couldn’t find it.
I turned around and tried to catch herself’s eye but she was laughing away with some woman who I wasn’t sure who she was, but her husband is a very nice lad who sells cars and wears lovely shirts. The check type with….anyway, eventually in a moment of recognition or that extra sensory power that women possess, I did manage to catch her attention. “Where is the Vase?” I mouthed across the room. It looked more like, “whe..h…….its …..daw vahoz” I think the other woman thought I was having some medical emergency and started to ask was I alright.
My lovely wife reassured her and having the ability to interpret disabled she quite confidently, patted the woman’s forearm and nodded reassuringly that I was alright but just a little stupid.
“He’s just looking for something,” I could hear her say as she nodded and the other woman with the nice husband nodded back in unity. The “I have one too” of sympathy.
As if I hadn’t seen anything they both looked at me and smiling I was told “It’s on the shelf.”
I nodded and headed to the shelf with Medusa’s serpents in my hand but the vase was nowhere to be seen. In fact the shelf had never been cleaner. It hadn’t been cleaner since……Oh Jesus, yesterday…..the intermediate match,…..the bottle bank…..
It came back to me in slow motion. The white wine bottles – Crash! The green bottles – Crash! Me looking over because a goal was about to be scored….”Go on!” and then my hand noticing one of the bottles was not going in as easy as the others. The hole didn’t seem to be accommodating it as well as the others…..it wouldn’t, because it wasn’t a bottle or a jam jar but something that was to have the same fate as Aunty Bridie at the cigarette factory. I didn’t really notice because I was watching the match. I like to look on it as multi-tasking.
I could feel the heat on my neck. The glare. The x- ray vision burning, when you’ve been rumbled. Because extra sensory Wonder Woman could see exactly what my thought process was and how I was scrambling in my mind to work things out with pointed fingers trying to re-magic the missing vase.
She could also see the vase she left there yesterday was not there now and was probably being made into some glass duck to be given away in a ‘shoot three in a row and win a prize’ at Funderland next Christmas.
Her words were damning. No malice, but they said it all before she walked away.
“I see the shelf is clear…..”
“Crystal” says I.