If you have any sympathy to go round, I’m over here. Having spent much of the last week bawling my eyes out, I think I deserve a little TLC. Aw, thanks. You’re lovely. Mmmmm. That’s niiiiiice. Ouch. Er, that’s enough. You’re making me spill my hot drink. Get off me, woman. Good. She’s gone.
Between you and I, dear reader, that wife of mine was always clingy. Do you know what I mean? Oh yes, I always had my doubts. Why do you think it took me 10 years to say yes? Now, she’s worse than ever. Remind me not to say TLC around her again.
Anyway, I was talking about me. Yes, my cold. From early morning to the last thing at night, I have been moping about with a handkerchief in one hand and a cup of hot lemon in the other. When I get it, I get it really bad. And when somebody has the sniffles, no one wants to know them. Most embarrassing of all is that, while some people have sore heads and throats, the germs shoot straight up my hooter and start attacking my eyes.
They stream continuously and I know I am doomed for days to defend my macho reputation against rumours I have turned into a weepy old git – while dabbing my eyes with my umpteenth hanky and sipping something
tepid and suspiciously lemony-looking from a nice glass with a lovely handle. Bah.
What makes it worse is that it is true. Whether I have a cold or not, I have a serious medical condition which makes me a cry baby. No, I’m not kidding you. It’s absolutely true.
Finding me sobbing at what the Bash Street Kids did to their teacher, what Tom did to Jerry and what Desperate Dan did to a meat pie made my parents very worried. I was wheeched over to the old Lewis Hospital, bundled onto a trolley and steered into a dark room where some doddery old geezer poked me with some very cold implements.
When they worked out I was the John Maciver with the funny eyes, and not the one with the lower abdomen problem, I was dragged away and another old guy with binoculars lashed to his forehead shone a light into my eyes and told me to think of something sad. So I thought of having to go and cut the peats the following Saturday and the tears rolled out in buckets.
He ummed and he aahed and decided I was not just a big Jessie after all and that there was a clinical cause. He said I had weak tear ducts and Mrs Maciver was not to worry because “your lad will grow out of it”. Yeah, right. Shows how much you know, mate.
The least thing and I’m still in floods. When I heard Gareth Bale was going to Real Madrid and getting £300,000 a week, I was bubbling. That’s £29.76 every single minute, you know, even when he’s asleep or in the loo. Boo-hoo-hoo. That’s is not proper emotion. Something is wrong. Maybe it’s jealousy that sets me off. I hadn’t thought of that.
However, it was true emotion that made poor fellow from the Ness area of Lewis wander down Sauchiehall Street recently, just a few days before his 20th wedding anniversary. He phoned me for gift advice. I told him to look out for a building marked BHS and told him that means Buy Her Something.
In he went and found himself in the lingerie department. There, shimmering on a rail in front of him, was a hugely expensive see-through negligée, it had been slashed to half price. It was in her size,
though. It still cost more than a sheep so he asked the assistant why it was so expensive when, well, there wasn’t really much to it.
“Ah sir,” she said as she held it up, “that’s the whole point, you see. When your wife puts this on you’ll hardly see it. It will be almost as if she is wearing nothing at all. Think about that, sir.” He did and Calum bought it on the spot. As he was stooring up the A9, he was very excited about the weekend ahead.
On the Friday night, Mrs Calum was very impressed that her man remembered what she used to think of as the best day of her life and even more so that he had a lovely gift for her. And she loved it. When it was time to retire, she had an idea. She shot up the stairs and told Calum to be up in a few minutes. She then took off all her clothes and when she heard him approaching she pretended she was wearing
her new negligée. As he opened the door, she glided and flounced round the room but, in fact, she was in the altogether.
Well, Calum’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “What do you think?” she asked, twirling. “You like?”
“Yeah, m’eudail, it’s great. But, you know something, in the shop it didn’t look quite so creased.”
