" Yes darling I was. Can I call you back in two minutes? I need a wetty."
So half an hour later my phone rang and I said,"Mum?"
"Sorry darling, I needed a daily as well and I couldn't find my teeth!"
Oh! God! I'd better explain. Well "daily" was the word used quite naturally in my house, but in no other as far as I know, though I haven't asked too many new girlfriends what pet names their families used for bodily functions, for the other you know what! Again, what an embarrassment it was until I learnt to speak colloquially to put up my hand and ask the teacher if I could "go for a daily?"
And this brings back two other life- wrecking memories. I think all five brothers learnt very quickly in life that unless you called out "I need the toilet" as you walked upstairs to the bathroom, you would find the bathroom door wide open with Sally sitting enthroned with her legs even wider apart wiping her works with hard "Izal" toilet paper and staring down at herself with no shame and she would smile and say, "won't be a moment darling I've just had a daily. She hadn't needed to inform us as we ran to open a window!
The other scarring memory is her teeth. Badly fitting false ones that we all watched slipping out of her mouth as she fell asleep. For a laugh we'd wait til they'd dropped out and then shout, "Mum! Teeth!" , and she'd half snort herself awake and say, "Someone must have knocked me!" and fall straight back to sleep!
" How are Shirley and the children darling?"
"Fine mum but look, is there any chance that I heard you on a medical phone-in this morning?"
"Yes darling! Did you hear it?"
"But mum, didn't you ask the wrong question?"
The family were starting to gag hysterically again!
"Well yes I did I suppose but I did try and explain to that silly arse that I hadn't been listening and I only turned on once I'd fed the mouse and wouldn't have asked the wrong question but one about her dying of kidney failure instead!"
I forgot to mention that Sally might have incorrectly read the Radio Times because her eyesight was very poor; minus forty or something, for which she obviously wore very thick specs which she could never find because her eyesight was so poor (!) and ended up with a broken pair of my daughter Gemma's whose eyesight was equally bad and had given mum her spare pair which although without arms and one lens and which mum used upside down, served her reasonably well for years.
If mum wanted to watch our nine inch, black and white telly she would stand in front of it, blocking the screen and bend forward from the waist with her skirt riding up and over her enormous rear end (big enough to be a Grobanite!) .When we sensed that this was about to happen we would all pray silently that she was wearing underwear for a change!
And she didn't just have one mouse. The house was overrun with them.
"But mum, why "Sally"?
"Oh! Darling! I'm "Sally " on medical programmes"
I was starting to feel uneasy."What do you mean"Sally" on medical programmes?"
"Well, I'm Amy of Forest Hill on gardening ones, Julie of Forest Walks on DIY ones, Sophia of Forest Glade on car maintence ones and Jackie of Forest Green on sex guidance ones and I think that that's about all of them, so you see I'm not just some silly old woman who needs bringing down a peg or two!"
As I repeated each bombshell to my lot, except the last one, they had started stuffing cushions into each others mouths to quieten their uncontrollable squeals.
She sounded quite hurt by her treatment. "But" she crowed "Guess what? A lovely group of men from the BBC have called to ask if I could ask the same question again in a fortnight so there!"
Reverting to Serbo-Croat, I cut in," Zally, Zat were me viz zilly voizes!"
Ten seconds silence and then, "You bastard!" And she slammed down the receiver!
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