Buttery Bollocks!

crumpet, originally uploaded by niznoz.

It’s been a big day Daddywise! I heard him up and bumbling about blunt and early.

'Richard! Richard! Richard, hurrumph, whatthefugishe, Richard!!'

New readers to the blog may be thinking of Marlon Brandon in Streetcar, tight white wife-beater vest shouting “Stella”… think again… balding dwarf, in loose white(ish) underpants and flesh coloured easy-top socks.

'Richard! Oh forgodsakeinfug-wuh-fu! Richaaard!'

I lie in bed wondering if he’ll ever shut up. It must be obvious that Richard is out. Up the stairs, one unsteady step at a time, comes the Balding Balrog. I hear him empty every drawer in the landing cupboard – open, rummage, expletive deleted, close, next drawer... I feel like we are being turned over by the world’s slowest jail warder – more Bad Girls or Cell Block H than OZ. No steamy shower scenes but a lot of shaky walls accompanied by shaky hands and heads as he short-sightedly rummages like a truffle pig with Parkinson’s.

He wanders into my bedroom – there is no privacy here. I could have been having a wank, or a toffee crisp or worse, sitting up in bed reading the sort of novel that I wouldn’t allow in the house (Maeve Binchy, and John Grisham spring to mind). 'He’s out!!' I annunciate clearly and loudly just to make the line sound less like a Lynda La Plant mini series. 'He’s gone to the vet' (thinking what a shame he hadn’t take the grumbling old git for the jabs mentioned in previous posts!)

'Well, yesterday, when I got back from Tesco (he lives in buggering Tesco!) I couldn’t get my, um, you know, whadoyoucallit, you know, to work. It wouldn’t go in. I was ten minutes fiddling on the doorstep. (Don’t make up your own jokes!) I’d bought a pound of butter in Tesco so I took that out and greased it and then it went in and I was able to turn it. So I was wondering where the spare, um, thing, was…. Key!'

Oh he's searching for a key - I have no idea where the spare ones are but I doubt they are in the drawer with pillowcases and blankets on the landing.

He proceeds to make his way back down the stairs and I get out of bed and catch him up on the landing below. He has moved on to looking for old video tapes (he has an entire cupboard filled with rugby league and David Attenborough documentaries among five to six copies of each episode of Stargate!

'Where are my tapes?'
'In the cupboard.'
'Here?' he says patting the top of the desk and picking up two audio cassettes.
'No not the desk – the cupboard.'
'Here?' He is now grasping the book case. Shall I just say Hot or Cold until he finds them?
'They're in the corner cupboard,' ...where they have been for six years. The cupboard is the size of a wardrobe. I point directly to it.
'Oh I’ll leave it,' he can’t bear the thought he might be wrong and he gives in frustrated yet again.

By the time I shower, dress and get ready to go, he is back truffling for keys in the hallstand. I slip out the front door and into the sanity of a waiting taxi.