Doghouse Tails
Created | Updated Mar 6, 2003
Lazing on a Sunny Afternoon
It's Sunday, it's hot (relative to the past four months kind of hot that is) and I've put on at least half a stone. Why does one gain half a stone the moment the sun comes out and the temperature rises? How many clothes do I have to try on before I can find a semi-fashionable tent that won't make me look like Mama Cas? (For the younger reader insert name of suitable current, fat, famous female at this point!).
The offsprung are back for the weekend. Why do children never actually leave home? They start life dribbling over anything of value that you might happen to own, grow into the spreading jammy dodgers and ketchup over the replacements phase, and then, having broken your collective heart by disappearing to the other side of the planet with most of your retirement fund to 'find themselves', bounce back to throw recycled tequila slammers over what remains of the furniture.
So what does Sunday have to offer? No computer access as, for the duration of their stay, it is logged into hotmail accounts and 'touch it at your peril' looks. An SAS trail of dirty washing that is guaranteed to make an industrial washing machine consider voluntary redundancy and a mountain of ironing that inspires a quick sprint up K2 as a preferred afternoon treat. It wouldn't be quite so bad if they spoke to you, but having wrecked the soft furnishings yet again, they are far too clever to show themselves before nightfall. When they do eventually surface it will be to empty what remains of the fridge, borrow a car, copious funds and at least one mobile phone, (theirs being without any credit or stuffed down the back seat of the last bus home). You might get a tuna filled 'love voo' on the way out as you vow to fill the fridge with hot chilli dip and cat food in preparation for their next visit.
While they snore obliviously all Miss Hippo wants to do is mow the lawn and get a free starter tan. Which reminds me, I love sun beds. Not relevant to anything but I love sun beds. Next to Eastenders and sex (note the order) They are without doubt one of life's most satisfying experiences. Well maybe not but they are, unlike children, at least reliable. Ten minutes of uninterrupted Madonna... uninterrupted because without your glasses you cannot change the channel, turn down the facial tanner or turn up the fans. Ten glorious minutes of your own time in your own sweaty, slippery space. No one can see the mounds of flesh sinking into the plastic, and you don't get zebra stripes. Sun beds ensure a perfect all over tan (except for that irritating bit at the bottom of the spine that seems to get squashed into the buttocks), without the torture of the, 'suck in stomach' game. Or the 'Oh s**t!' As you realise your neighbour/ best friend/any female you happen to know or who might be regarded as competition, can see the folds of flesh hanging like pink blancmange beneath the shadow of your Sumo wrestler arms. Not only can she see them; you can smell the sense of relief in her realisation that her pink blancmange folds are nowhere near as plump or pendulous as yours are. Mental note 'pendulous' and 'plump' are adjectives used to describe sexy young breasts not pink blancmange, totally wrong in this context. Never use again when describing the lard-like appendages that sway independently from ageing female humeri.
'Do you want chocolate?' he asks, thoughtlessly interrupting your mindless, but comforting, cerebral diarrhoea, and doing it in a manner which suggests it is something you do every weekend (eating chocolate that is) whilst watching Eastenders or, 'Easters', as he disparagingly refers to it. I ask you, not even 'Enders'. Is there any hope? Is there truly a God?
Of course I don't want chocolate. I want low calorie still fruit drinks, melon and a stone to magically disappear from my arms. I want to be twenty-two. I want to be thinner than Geri Halliwell!
He waits patiently for a reply.
OK, I hate low calorie still fruit drinks and melon makes me fart.
Why can't it just chuck it down all afternoon? Why can't the temperature drop by at least ten degrees? Why wasn't I born to be a stick insect? Why aren't children born rich? I want Eastenders to have at least one broken romance and a death, and Grant to come back and have a punch up with... anyone really, and I want it to last all afternoon so I can't even think about the ironing.
'Mmmmmmm'
'I take it that's a yes then?'
Why are men so s*****g smug? And why don't they get cellulite? And why do old men's faces look 'craggy and interesting' while only moderately middle aged women look like Jabba the hut?
'Yes please I want b****y chocolate!'
