Somebody asked me the other day what I call Mrs X. Was it dear, darling or just my cailleach? The questioner’s not been long married into the MacKinnon family and was just trying to get the hang of the right lingo for each occasion and was asking someone who knows. That, by the way, is myself as I ended up with his sister-in-law.
I had to think about that. Dear? Nah. Darling? No-o-o-o. What kind of soppy fellow do you think I am? Cailleach? Even I wouldn’t dare do that. Even if she is. The answer is quite simple. I don’t call her dear or darling. But sometimes I do call her upstairs.
Don’t be filthy. My office is up here. It’s a work thing.
Never work with children or animals – especially dogs. Isn’t that what thespians say. In fact, there’s a lot of things you shouldn’t do with dogs. Going by my own experience recently you would not be advised to take a mutt into your home at all.
I sit here penniless but thankful I now have something to sit on. It was touch and go. When Hector, the Miniature Schnauzer we choose to share our life with, decided to have a snack and test the strength of his canine teeth, he began looking for a bone or piece of rawhide to gnaw.
With none being immediately available, he rummaged around looking for something else that was a bit chewy. You know, like a piece of leather.
Unfortunately, the bit of leather the mutt decided to gnaw was attached to the rest of the cushion in our living room. In fact, it wasn’t actually a cushion at all but an upholstered part of the bottom-supporting mechanism on our luxurious three-piece suite.
Why luxurious? I’ll tell you why. Because that sofa and chair were actually responsible for me having a lot of fun. They were recliners – pull the handles at the side and they would go boi-oing, whip the legs from under you and promptly make you spill your hot tea all over your pink bits.
Ouch, I mean wheeee. I did that every Saturday night. It was sort of fun. I don’t get out much.
And the other reason it was luxurious was that it cost me £4,000. That’s right, £4,000. I’m not one to go on about money but can you believe it? Four thousand squid.
I forked out less than that to get a wife, for goodness sake. That naughty weekend in Glasgow which made her say yes didn’t cost half that much. Mind you, she’s whipped the legs from under me more than once since then and what she has threatened to do to parts of my body that are not suitable for a newspaper that already has so much bad news about a hurricane called Sandy.
It was just before we moved into this house that Mrs X dragged me along to a sale in the Laxdale Hall. A furniture company, long since gone to the wall unlike my suite which has gone to the dump, was promising top-of-the-range bargains. We decided to push the boat out and go for the £1,400 beauty with the built-in tea spiller and a shiny leather finish that could cope with a husband returning from the pub and upending a tray of sweet and sour prawn balls onto it as soon as he is in the door.
Mind you, £1,400 was a lot then. It still is. Then the patter.
“Great choice, sir. Would you like to take advantage of our free credit scheme? Nothing to pay for a year.
In fact, you can have even longer to pay if you want. Whatever suits you, sir. Just sign here.”
Nice one, I thought. This will be painless. Where do I sign? What a mistake that was. That first year went past in a flash and we then discovered I had actually signed a hire purchase credit agreement that I would have to keep going for another four, long, expensive years. The interest rates were ridiculous – worse than a credit card.
There was no way to cancel. I was not kidding. Through my nose, I ended up giving them £4,000 for the pleasure of putting my well-upholstered behind on that upholstery. Imagine.
It’s the hidden charges that catch the unwary. However, we can get over-anxious about having to pay things we did not expect and, just as disappointingly, having things to do ourselves that we thought were included as part of the service.
When my brother-in-law Peter George was in hospital last year, he was quite poorly and was told he was not allowed to get out of bed for any reason. An attentive nurse told him that the doctor’s instructions were quite clear so she asked if he would like a bedpan.
Peter George looked at her with his trademark frown and muttered: “What’s the NHS coming to? I came in here cos I’m sick. It’s not right that I have to do my own cooking.”
