There’s a time and a place to catch up with your friends. Standing in line at the local chemists to buy threadworm pills, though, isn’t one of them.
Vicky and her children are midway up the queue of prescription-clutching oldsters when Bad Lindy pushes the door open.
"Blimey. It's the statin set on their day out. Mind if I join you?" she says, barging her way in next to Vicky, a tube of toothpaste in her hand. "What are you doing here, anyway? And what's with the dark glasses."
Vicky mouths something. "What?" says Bad Lindy. "I'll text you," hisses Vicky, tapping away on her phone. "There. Should show up any minute."
Bad Lindy reads the message. "Yuck! Threadworm" she says. "No wonder you didn't want to say it out loud."
By this time, the cholesterol queens are all turning round for a good peer at the parasite-ridden family in their midst. Vicky keeps smiling until she gets to the front of the queue.
“HELLO! HELLO!” says the cheery pharmacist, speaking entirely in block capitals and exclamation marks. “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”
“I need a family pack of threadworm tablets,” whispers Vicky.
It's at this point that an elderly woman, just behind, senses that this is a golden opportunity for a no holds barred public forum about public health.
“Threadworm pills?” she calls. “Have you got worms, then?”
The queue falls silent. Vicky's children try to climb into their sunhats so they can curl up quietly and die of mortification. People looked at Vicky, then away again.
“Well………” says Vicky, desperately.
“How did you get them, then? You’re very brown, have you been abroad? I expect you got them there.”
Temporarily satisfied, she relapses into silence until Vicky is about to leave the shop, clutching her pills, when she fires her parting shot:
“Did you get fleas as well, while you were away?”
"You know what, Vicky," says Bad Lindy, as they leave the chemist's. "You really should learn to be a bit more discreet. You don't want everyone knowing about your threadworm."
"Threadworm?," says the postman, who's just passing. "You need to nip into the chemist and get some pills. It's just behind you."
Vicky darts a look of hatred at him and Bad Lindy and rushes off with her children.
"Only trying to help," says the postman.
Bad Lindy lays a consoling hand on his arm. "And I'm sure you're very, very good at it..........." she says.
Saturday, 7 July 2007
Friday, 6 July 2007
It's a job. But not as we know it.
"I've been offered a job," says Francis, with all the enthusiasm of somebody who's just been presented with a large slice of pizza with sick topping. It is, sadly, the wrong job.
The job he really wanted with the two merging companies - vision statement: 'we're very much in love' - has opted for incest and appointed somebody who works there already. But that's the way with romance.
Instead, he's been offered a role in a dynamic organisation selling men's beauty products. Though, being men, they're nothing to do with beauty - God forbid - but substances so innately virile that pores don't just spring open with just one application but bubble over with Vesuvial amounts of testosterone.
There's only one problem. Not only is it a pared down, six-stone weakling of a job with a job title to match, but the salary is substantially less that the one he was on.
"I'll be turning it down, of course," he says, matter of factly, opening a beer. A lot of thoughts course through my mind at this point. Particularly the urgent need to check how much his life is insured for, followed by a swift call to the insurance company to see if being arrested for murder is invariably a bar to receiving the payout.
But I have to be good. I have to be supportive. Though, let's be honest, I have very little choice. "You must decide what you want to do," I say, while the words, "It's a job, take it. It's a job, take it," roll round and round in my head.
Our money is dwindling rapidly. I am taking on more teaching work from September but it's not enough.
So does Francis open the box, accept the job - because it's a job, after all - or hang on in there because he's got more interviews over the next few weeks? I only wish I knew.
The job he really wanted with the two merging companies - vision statement: 'we're very much in love' - has opted for incest and appointed somebody who works there already. But that's the way with romance.
Instead, he's been offered a role in a dynamic organisation selling men's beauty products. Though, being men, they're nothing to do with beauty - God forbid - but substances so innately virile that pores don't just spring open with just one application but bubble over with Vesuvial amounts of testosterone.
There's only one problem. Not only is it a pared down, six-stone weakling of a job with a job title to match, but the salary is substantially less that the one he was on.
"I'll be turning it down, of course," he says, matter of factly, opening a beer. A lot of thoughts course through my mind at this point. Particularly the urgent need to check how much his life is insured for, followed by a swift call to the insurance company to see if being arrested for murder is invariably a bar to receiving the payout.
But I have to be good. I have to be supportive. Though, let's be honest, I have very little choice. "You must decide what you want to do," I say, while the words, "It's a job, take it. It's a job, take it," roll round and round in my head.
Our money is dwindling rapidly. I am taking on more teaching work from September but it's not enough.
So does Francis open the box, accept the job - because it's a job, after all - or hang on in there because he's got more interviews over the next few weeks? I only wish I knew.
Thursday, 5 July 2007
Vultures in stilettos
Down at the sports centre Leo is at a party in the main hall and I'm nursing a coffee in the bar, dodging the competitive mummies who circle the place like vultures in stilettos, skewering the weaker parents with killer questions.
Maybe it's me, but "Does Leo have special needs?" is a question I'd accept with equanimity only from my mother (though, as she's dead, I would be very, very surprised) or a close friend, and not always then.
But it's asked by a woman I scarcely know and not even prefaced by 'How are you?' or 'Nice to see you.' Call me Mrs Picky, but I reckon that curiosity this naked needs the decent covering of an opening conversational gambit, no matter how flimsy.
I make a non-commital answer, which in the hands of a good translator would almost certainly win the 'Best use of epithet' national award with a strong chance of sweeping the board in the world finals, and shoot her dead with the small, pearl-handled revolver I always carry with me for just these sorts of emergencies, together with a Get out of Jail Free card and a suicide pill.
Well, I would shoot her dead, but for my last minute gun for Pak-a-mak trade. It's a decision I now regret, though it was based, entirely logically, on the shortage of handbag space and the local forecast, which predicted persistent heavy rain but only sporadic outbreaks of casual violence, dying away from the West by early evening.
So instead, I'm sitting on the plastic banquette, wondering how long it would take to passive-smoke the other mother to death, or disembowel her with a coffee stirrer, assuming she stayed still for the several days that would be required to make the initial incision.
We're all victims now, old and young, big and small, carrying round our traumas like open sores, pointing out the particularly good suppurating bits to whoever will listen, and I rather assume that's what encourages relative strangers to ask whatever question they damn well please on the basis that whatever the hurt, it's better out than in
Well, bollocks to that. If I want to show off my sores, I will. In the meantime, I'll keep them well bandaged. And Leo's problems will be known only to me, you, and the schoolfriends of Beth's who have linked via her blog to mine and told their mothers.
And that leaves........Do stop it, Mum. I've told you before. Spin in your grave that loudly and you'll wake the kids up again.
Maybe it's me, but "Does Leo have special needs?" is a question I'd accept with equanimity only from my mother (though, as she's dead, I would be very, very surprised) or a close friend, and not always then.
But it's asked by a woman I scarcely know and not even prefaced by 'How are you?' or 'Nice to see you.' Call me Mrs Picky, but I reckon that curiosity this naked needs the decent covering of an opening conversational gambit, no matter how flimsy.
I make a non-commital answer, which in the hands of a good translator would almost certainly win the 'Best use of epithet' national award with a strong chance of sweeping the board in the world finals, and shoot her dead with the small, pearl-handled revolver I always carry with me for just these sorts of emergencies, together with a Get out of Jail Free card and a suicide pill.
Well, I would shoot her dead, but for my last minute gun for Pak-a-mak trade. It's a decision I now regret, though it was based, entirely logically, on the shortage of handbag space and the local forecast, which predicted persistent heavy rain but only sporadic outbreaks of casual violence, dying away from the West by early evening.
So instead, I'm sitting on the plastic banquette, wondering how long it would take to passive-smoke the other mother to death, or disembowel her with a coffee stirrer, assuming she stayed still for the several days that would be required to make the initial incision.
We're all victims now, old and young, big and small, carrying round our traumas like open sores, pointing out the particularly good suppurating bits to whoever will listen, and I rather assume that's what encourages relative strangers to ask whatever question they damn well please on the basis that whatever the hurt, it's better out than in
Well, bollocks to that. If I want to show off my sores, I will. In the meantime, I'll keep them well bandaged. And Leo's problems will be known only to me, you, and the schoolfriends of Beth's who have linked via her blog to mine and told their mothers.
And that leaves........Do stop it, Mum. I've told you before. Spin in your grave that loudly and you'll wake the kids up again.
Wednesday, 4 July 2007
Old school pig heads
Interview of the Week is with a publishing company, which has decided to shake off its old school tie image and concentrate on building a new, hard-edged sales team with a non-book background.
Briefed by the headhunter, Francis arrives prepared to deny reading anything except job descriptions, and so determinedly hard-edged that it's a miracle his elbows don't leave dents in the boardroom table.
His presentation, "How I saw off the combined forces of evil and saved the ozone layer with a buy one, get one free promotion," goes down a storm.
He does another psychometric test. "You come across not suffering fools gladly yet a likeable manager," says the interviewer. "There's just one anomaly. You had to agree or disagree with this statement. 'Some people think you are pig-headed,'" yet you chose to answer 'don't know'," He sounds genuinely baffled.
"That's because I don't know," says Francis.
Later, the headhunter rings. The publishing company has seen five candidates who between them offer more hard edges than a dodecahedron wholesaler but has opted for a sixth - a brandy-swilling, old-school tie merchant who'd take second place to a marshmallow in hard-edge contest and has a solid background in......publishing.
Later, I come across some personal ads placed by job-seekers.
One is from a freelance crossword/word game compiler who finds himself 'left behind in the business race due to lack of email, fax or online facilities'. Is there a potential employer out there, he wonders, 'able and willing to forego this computer-obsessed society and get down to good old-fashioned sensible business communication?'
You can only hope.
Briefed by the headhunter, Francis arrives prepared to deny reading anything except job descriptions, and so determinedly hard-edged that it's a miracle his elbows don't leave dents in the boardroom table.
His presentation, "How I saw off the combined forces of evil and saved the ozone layer with a buy one, get one free promotion," goes down a storm.
He does another psychometric test. "You come across not suffering fools gladly yet a likeable manager," says the interviewer. "There's just one anomaly. You had to agree or disagree with this statement. 'Some people think you are pig-headed,'" yet you chose to answer 'don't know'," He sounds genuinely baffled.
"That's because I don't know," says Francis.
Later, the headhunter rings. The publishing company has seen five candidates who between them offer more hard edges than a dodecahedron wholesaler but has opted for a sixth - a brandy-swilling, old-school tie merchant who'd take second place to a marshmallow in hard-edge contest and has a solid background in......publishing.
Later, I come across some personal ads placed by job-seekers.
One is from a freelance crossword/word game compiler who finds himself 'left behind in the business race due to lack of email, fax or online facilities'. Is there a potential employer out there, he wonders, 'able and willing to forego this computer-obsessed society and get down to good old-fashioned sensible business communication?'
You can only hope.
Tuesday, 3 July 2007
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
1. A friend has elderly, increasingly vague parents. Her mother has had a fall and her leg is in plaster. She, and my friend's father, can't remember why:
'In the evenings, when they're getting ready for bed, Mum will say, "This is so uncomfortable, when am I going to get rid of it?" and Dad will say, "Where did that plaster come from." Then he'll get scissors and hack from the bottom end. Fortunately he never gets very far. So I wrote on the plaster, ‘fractured kneecap’ with arrows in both directions so Dad would know how serious it was and Mum would remember. Then I hid the scissors. Last night, the carer found Dad walking down the hall with a large carving knife and asked him what wanted it for. He said: "I can’t find any scissors. I’m going to cut off the plaster on Jean’s leg." Now we'll have to hide all the knives, too.
2. Message from woman with troubled marriage:
'I ask if OK when I'm cheerily cooking family supper. He says yes fine, thank you. I am very happily engrossed in my Times crossword. He is odd and I'm not. Should I leave the mismatchoddbod? Dare I? Do the fk I!? I daren't. Fkit.
3. Reading buddies
Deborah, 7, to me: Mum? What if you fall in love with your reading buddy?
Me: I should enjoy it
Deb: I never know his name.
Me; What if you ask him?
Deb: He just says it too quietly. At first I thought his name was Duncan, but I think he said, 'Lincoln'. I'll just forget it again and again.
Me: What's he like?
Deb: He has ginger hair and small eyes and freckles and he's sweet. But how can I think he's sweet if he's in Year 5 and I'm in Year 2? And he'll always be three years older than me. When I'm 8, he'll be 11. When I'm 11, he'll be 14. When I'm 12, he'll be (pause) 17?
Me (I can spot a soft learning opportunity when I see one) Think of your three times table
Deb: 19?
(Pause)
Deb: I'm not going on a date when I'm 7. But I might.........I might.
'In the evenings, when they're getting ready for bed, Mum will say, "This is so uncomfortable, when am I going to get rid of it?" and Dad will say, "Where did that plaster come from." Then he'll get scissors and hack from the bottom end. Fortunately he never gets very far. So I wrote on the plaster, ‘fractured kneecap’ with arrows in both directions so Dad would know how serious it was and Mum would remember. Then I hid the scissors. Last night, the carer found Dad walking down the hall with a large carving knife and asked him what wanted it for. He said: "I can’t find any scissors. I’m going to cut off the plaster on Jean’s leg." Now we'll have to hide all the knives, too.
2. Message from woman with troubled marriage:
'I ask if OK when I'm cheerily cooking family supper. He says yes fine, thank you. I am very happily engrossed in my Times crossword. He is odd and I'm not. Should I leave the mismatchoddbod? Dare I? Do the fk I!? I daren't. Fkit.
3. Reading buddies
Deborah, 7, to me: Mum? What if you fall in love with your reading buddy?
Me: I should enjoy it
Deb: I never know his name.
Me; What if you ask him?
Deb: He just says it too quietly. At first I thought his name was Duncan, but I think he said, 'Lincoln'. I'll just forget it again and again.
Me: What's he like?
Deb: He has ginger hair and small eyes and freckles and he's sweet. But how can I think he's sweet if he's in Year 5 and I'm in Year 2? And he'll always be three years older than me. When I'm 8, he'll be 11. When I'm 11, he'll be 14. When I'm 12, he'll be (pause) 17?
Me (I can spot a soft learning opportunity when I see one) Think of your three times table
Deb: 19?
(Pause)
Deb: I'm not going on a date when I'm 7. But I might.........I might.
Monday, 2 July 2007
Mind over matter
There are times when I am convinced that, not only does my body takes second place to my mind, but it resents the unequal partnership.
My brain gets daydreaming and Higher Things: my body gets lumbered with the routine, low grade, day to day stuff, with just a small part of the brain stem nagging it on: "Keep the lungs going. And how many times do I have to tell you - you can't do the lungs and just forget about the heart. And look - that liver's got a lot on its plate. Keep that bile production up. And, no, you can't be excused intestine duty."
Then it's doors to manual once something exciting starts to happen and the bigger, grander brain bits step in to take control.
"Sharp corner! Brake! Brake! No - we need full consciousness here, thanks very much."
or
"Foreplay ahead. I'll take over here, thanks very much. Just remember, the way to a woman's satisfaction is via the brain. No, you can't start without me."
But, for the most part, I feel as if most of my brain is spending its entire time on autopilot, using what we're told is an almost infinite capacity for thought, conjecture and originality to ponder such deep, earth-shattering issues as:
Did that shirt really look better in pink?
If I go to the post office now, will I have time to do the shopping as well?
Where did I put the name tapes?
It all works pretty well until you hand over too much control and your body takes full advantage.
Which is why I spend days trailing myself, like an inadequate detective, wondering what my body has been up to while my brain was otherwise occupied. It can strike at any time. I start thinking about Leo, for example, and my body promptly sets off to mystery locations at a great rate. What makes it worse is its lack of judgement when it comes to quality destinations.
Finding myself in Paris wouldn't be so bad, but it never is Paris. My body is much keener on treks to front door or the boot of the car. The airing cupboard is another favourite choice, giving me the opportunity to survey the immersion heater in minute detail while wondering a) how I got there b) what I'm doing there and c) how much longer it's going to take to find out, until my synapses return from lunch break and start the afternoon shift.
Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot made much of his little grey brain cells. I bet he didn't have to count them all out and back again before he was able to put them to use.
My brain gets daydreaming and Higher Things: my body gets lumbered with the routine, low grade, day to day stuff, with just a small part of the brain stem nagging it on: "Keep the lungs going. And how many times do I have to tell you - you can't do the lungs and just forget about the heart. And look - that liver's got a lot on its plate. Keep that bile production up. And, no, you can't be excused intestine duty."
Then it's doors to manual once something exciting starts to happen and the bigger, grander brain bits step in to take control.
"Sharp corner! Brake! Brake! No - we need full consciousness here, thanks very much."
or
"Foreplay ahead. I'll take over here, thanks very much. Just remember, the way to a woman's satisfaction is via the brain. No, you can't start without me."
But, for the most part, I feel as if most of my brain is spending its entire time on autopilot, using what we're told is an almost infinite capacity for thought, conjecture and originality to ponder such deep, earth-shattering issues as:
Did that shirt really look better in pink?
If I go to the post office now, will I have time to do the shopping as well?
Where did I put the name tapes?
It all works pretty well until you hand over too much control and your body takes full advantage.
Which is why I spend days trailing myself, like an inadequate detective, wondering what my body has been up to while my brain was otherwise occupied. It can strike at any time. I start thinking about Leo, for example, and my body promptly sets off to mystery locations at a great rate. What makes it worse is its lack of judgement when it comes to quality destinations.
Finding myself in Paris wouldn't be so bad, but it never is Paris. My body is much keener on treks to front door or the boot of the car. The airing cupboard is another favourite choice, giving me the opportunity to survey the immersion heater in minute detail while wondering a) how I got there b) what I'm doing there and c) how much longer it's going to take to find out, until my synapses return from lunch break and start the afternoon shift.
Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot made much of his little grey brain cells. I bet he didn't have to count them all out and back again before he was able to put them to use.
Sunday, 1 July 2007
Moderate support
So far, Francis has met fifteen headhunters and ten prospective employers. In adddition to Mr Tosser, he's been turned down by two companies for being over-qualified; one vinyl flooring company for being under-excited, and by Posh Headhunter for not having enough hair - at least, in the right places.
This week, he's going back to see the merging companies which are now so involved with each other that they're almost ready to consummate the relationship with a candlelit announcement for two and a short but moving exchange of ringtones by the chairmen. But, like dippy lovers everywhere, the sheer excitement of the thing - should the new logo feature both the bride and groom's names? - is making them horribly indecisive, especially about the sort of employee they should be hiring together. Senior....or not? Experienced ..... or not? Oooh, it's so difficult to choose, they giggle.
While they mull over the candidates like a box of assorted chocolates, Francis' nerves are a little strained. I try to keep my questions light but supportive, wondering just when it was that a sports bra became the best role model available to me.
"So, what's the toughest question you've been asked so far?" I say.
"This one," says Francis.
Forget sports bras. I think we may be talking hernia trusses.
I know how to please my man. In a matter of seconds, I have transformed myself into a miracle of erotic desire and he has forgotten all his troubles, at least during the sultry half hour we spend together.
As if. This is mid-afternoon weekend reality with three children and two pets, all of whom see the remotest sign of tenderness as a challenge to their attention-seeking abilities that must not go unanswered. And the only way I'm going to achieve transformation into an erotic anything is with a blowtorch and a large crate of miracle filler.
Instead, the phone rings with a litany of things we've forgotten. In seconds, I've knocked back a few Dylithium crystals and am preparing to cross the universe via an intricate network of wormholes so that Leo can be delivered on time to the football training session that started half an hour ago; Beth can be at the other end of the galaxy to listen to a friend charming the locals with her wind band and Deborah can open channels of communication with alien lifeforms by cross-universe screaming.
Having triumphantly negotiated the time/space continuum, thanks to graduating with distinction in module three of the Government's enlightened new training scheme for mothers, "Your child remains government property and must be surrendered upon demand," I am a few miles from home when smoke begins to pour out from underneath the dashboard.
We're passing a government building at the time. Because of the bomb fun of the last few days, police are everywhere, checking cars and noting numberplates. Mindful of Vicky's recent car-burning exploits, I pull in, wondering if the car has Al-Quaeda sympathies. Either that, or it resents the new ban on smoking and has taken to consuming 40 a day in public places just to get its point across.
I get out and am completely ignored. I call Francis who arrives, opens the bonnet, checks the wiring and re-starts the engine, looking both weary and slightly disbelieving. This is the point when I want the car to belch one more tiny, but conclusive blob of smoke from under the dashboard so I can yell, 'Exhibit A'. Nothing happens. Fortunately, the smell of old burning remains.
"Hmmm," says Francis. "It's got a plastic aroma, with undertones of rubber." He sounds like a wine taster. "I think it's simply something that got caught on the manifold."
He sounds so authoritative that that some weak, feeble heroine of yesteryear, all I can do is simper up at him like a girlie weed.
Vicky replies to an earlier text.
"Is ure car ablaze? Honestly, that's sooo last wk! And its my job. Get a disaster of your own, u tight bitch."
I show it to Francis and he laughs as he drives us home. It's clear that the whole incident has made him feel a lot better, if only for the fact that I still have no clue exactly what a manifold is.
This week, he's going back to see the merging companies which are now so involved with each other that they're almost ready to consummate the relationship with a candlelit announcement for two and a short but moving exchange of ringtones by the chairmen. But, like dippy lovers everywhere, the sheer excitement of the thing - should the new logo feature both the bride and groom's names? - is making them horribly indecisive, especially about the sort of employee they should be hiring together. Senior....or not? Experienced ..... or not? Oooh, it's so difficult to choose, they giggle.
While they mull over the candidates like a box of assorted chocolates, Francis' nerves are a little strained. I try to keep my questions light but supportive, wondering just when it was that a sports bra became the best role model available to me.
"So, what's the toughest question you've been asked so far?" I say.
"This one," says Francis.
Forget sports bras. I think we may be talking hernia trusses.
I know how to please my man. In a matter of seconds, I have transformed myself into a miracle of erotic desire and he has forgotten all his troubles, at least during the sultry half hour we spend together.
As if. This is mid-afternoon weekend reality with three children and two pets, all of whom see the remotest sign of tenderness as a challenge to their attention-seeking abilities that must not go unanswered. And the only way I'm going to achieve transformation into an erotic anything is with a blowtorch and a large crate of miracle filler.
Instead, the phone rings with a litany of things we've forgotten. In seconds, I've knocked back a few Dylithium crystals and am preparing to cross the universe via an intricate network of wormholes so that Leo can be delivered on time to the football training session that started half an hour ago; Beth can be at the other end of the galaxy to listen to a friend charming the locals with her wind band and Deborah can open channels of communication with alien lifeforms by cross-universe screaming.
Having triumphantly negotiated the time/space continuum, thanks to graduating with distinction in module three of the Government's enlightened new training scheme for mothers, "Your child remains government property and must be surrendered upon demand," I am a few miles from home when smoke begins to pour out from underneath the dashboard.
We're passing a government building at the time. Because of the bomb fun of the last few days, police are everywhere, checking cars and noting numberplates. Mindful of Vicky's recent car-burning exploits, I pull in, wondering if the car has Al-Quaeda sympathies. Either that, or it resents the new ban on smoking and has taken to consuming 40 a day in public places just to get its point across.
I get out and am completely ignored. I call Francis who arrives, opens the bonnet, checks the wiring and re-starts the engine, looking both weary and slightly disbelieving. This is the point when I want the car to belch one more tiny, but conclusive blob of smoke from under the dashboard so I can yell, 'Exhibit A'. Nothing happens. Fortunately, the smell of old burning remains.
"Hmmm," says Francis. "It's got a plastic aroma, with undertones of rubber." He sounds like a wine taster. "I think it's simply something that got caught on the manifold."
He sounds so authoritative that that some weak, feeble heroine of yesteryear, all I can do is simper up at him like a girlie weed.
Vicky replies to an earlier text.
"Is ure car ablaze? Honestly, that's sooo last wk! And its my job. Get a disaster of your own, u tight bitch."
I show it to Francis and he laughs as he drives us home. It's clear that the whole incident has made him feel a lot better, if only for the fact that I still have no clue exactly what a manifold is.
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