Sally-Part 27. "DAVID!" WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE CRUMPET PACKET?"

I knew today was going to start with at least a little tension in the air and so it did as an uncomfortable silence menaced my breakfast.

It all began last evening when Shirley decided to shop online at Asda and not to go to Cramlington's Morrisons to shop, which would have taken about an hour, unless you take into account the three journeys that I would have made back to "Customer Services", ( after Shirleys barked demand to me, "Receipt!" once I've paid, for she carries no money and before I've sat in the car because her eagle eyes have spotted discrepancies ) and  under Shirley's instructions, via various displays, checking the shelf price against the receipt price, to claim as much as three pee back on each overcharged item, doubling the time taken to do the original shop.

The first time I return the nice lady behind the desk tries not to look too bored with my enquiry and speaks to me in a reasonably civilised way but by the third time I dread going back in as her tone has rapidly sunk into contempt and her look to ridicule!

But I am a determined man and I will not be deterred in my quest!

I can only tell you that I have done that on many occasions, leaving Shirley bristling with righteous indignation and sat in a car that rapidly becomes too hot for her as the temperature soars past freezing point ( She suffers terribly from heat because of post meno-whatsit ladies problems! Kuh! You girls should be thankful that you don't get Manflu 'cos then you'd know what "ILL" really is! ), thereby adding to her general dissatisfaction with shopping and me.

So she settled down to a four hour selection process but not without asking me whether there was anything that I would especially like.

 "Right! I'm sick of this already! What do you want? Hurry up! I'm not spending all night doing this and waiting for you to make up your snail-paced mind!  I haven't read Josh's latest tweet for minutes!"

Well my favourite food at the moment is peanut butter on Marmite sandwiches so that is what I asked for.

" God! How disgusting!" she replied kindly, acknowledging my request.

"Right!, I want you in bed by ten as the delivery'll be here between 8am and midday so I wont be able to sleep a wink wondering where I'm going to put it all and I'll have to get you up at dawn to be ready for the van which means tomorrow's a write off for me and I'm going to be exhausted just emptying the bags after you've carried them through probably in the wrong order as usual and no pulling the quilt off me again tonight or you'll have to go into the other bed!"

Did you notice that Shirley didn't take a breath there?

She doesn't when she talks to her friends on the phone for two hours and then complains, " I suppose you noticed, two hours and I didn't get a word in!"

Well, give Asda their due, the van arrived at 8:15 and though a little slow in finding our shopping the man got away in under five minutes and then the fun began.

"David! I didn't order this Pesto sauce and there's no spaghetti!"

The ACTUAL carrier bag or one very similar that the unordered Pesto Sauce arrived in

"Gosh!" I said trying to sound shocked.

"And you haven't brought in the bag of frozen! Where is it?"

Oh dear! there wasn't one! He had gone away with it!

And that meant a telephone complaint to South Africa and I'm not kidding! ( I wonder how long some poorly paid South African telephone enquiries operator can remain sane! )

The poor soul returned, waving the missing spaghetti and frozen food high in triumph.

Exhausted, Shirley collapsed in front of her new wallpaper of Josh Groban ! ( The young American singer who has won her heart ! )

I carefully opened the newly arrived crumpets and daring to turn the toaster up two notches without asking permission first ( Oh God! I think I've forgotten to turn it back down! Hang on a minute I'll just nip in and see!...Phew! that was a close call! ) went to lift the packet to put it in the cupboard when disaster struck and the packaging split in two! I silently kind of rolled the plastic around the remaining crumpets and jammed them in beside the Rice Krispies, ate my food, made a coffee and slunk back into my room.

THE SHOCKING EVIDENCE !

A wife can scent out trouble by the quietness of her husbands movements and that's how, not one minute later and seemingly recovered from her exhaustion my ears were blasted by, " DAVID! WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE CRUMPET PACKET?"

My hand temporarily tightened it's grip on my Stanley Knife and then relaxed as I decided, once again,to be non-confrontational.

" MY HAND TEMPORARILY TIGHTENED IT'S GRIP ON MY STANLEY KNIFE"

And you can't ask for a much more fascinating insight into life in the Nash household than that!!!

"DAVID! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE TOASTER CONTROLS?"

OH! NO!..................