Ginger Tabby and Red Cross

chugger, originally uploaded by Kelteek.

Friday night: I am happily surfing, catching up with Facebook, Flickr and Big Brother Forum. Richard is less happily ‘serfing’, getting me tea and toast and sorting out a ham to boil in coca-cola.

Someone is knocking at the door. Richard answers but I can’t hear who he is talking to above the din of News24 (from my room) and SGI (Jack’s room). He is not inviting anyone in and as I am undressed I cannot go and investigate – I’m not dressing just for some hawker! However, by judiciously leaning over the banister I can hide my naked bulk whilst catching sight of something ginger in a suit and hear Richard’s nervous coughing. Rich and his dad are suckers for buying things at the door from our local gypsy or 'Lucky Heather' as we call her. They also fill in sponsorship forms and signs petitions. Richard will even talk to neighbours in the street. I worry we are being talked into a conservatory or PVC windows or something equally déclassé to lower the value of the house.

I go back to my room and shut up the smug twosome from the BBC. Why has the news decided on a Richard and Judy format? We never get two men or two women anchors at the same time as if Auntie Beeb had become so heterosexist as to consider that a single-sex news team may affront the moral dignity of the nation. I still can’t hear as Daddy Shortlegs has his telly volume set on “Wembley”. His room is next to the front door (for his convenient removal when the day comes that a long black car pulls quietly up outside) so the noise still masks the conversation in the porch.

The caller has ginger hair with chunky blond streaks and resembles a political refugee from Cats. I am sure his hairdresser said it will make him look like Geri Halliwell during the Ginger Spice years. Unless she is one of those older salon owners with vicious red hair of a colour only used by older salon owners to complement the Caramac (puppy scour) shade beloved by old males in the profession. In which case she might have hinted he would look like Holly Golightly. Unfortunately they are wrong – he has been tinted the shade of an old tabby with a grease problem and looks like “cat” in the rain scene at the end of Breakfast at Tiffanys.

Over his suit he is wearing a logo-strewn tabard – a vest affair normally sported by criminals, netball players and schoolchildren on sports day who can’t afford a set of kit in the house colours. An advert breaks occurs and Jack’s set dips down to the lulling roar of a Motorhead concert. I hear the ginger one saying he is working for the Red Cross so we are victims of doorstep chuggers – and with that hair! We are giving money to a charity which makes the young man lick his lips with delight. I work for a charity and yet Richard does not make a contribution to me. Charity begins at home you know!!