SALLY...PART 198 ! FORTY FIVE YEARS LATER !

IT WAS APPARENTLY A CARDBOARD CAKE BUT I DON'T REMEMBER !

When my mother told my future wife, "Don't do it darling ! He'll never provide for you !" the night before our wedding, she was not alone in thinking we stood NO chance of making it through forty five weeks let alone forty five years !

Well somehow we did and we probably have no idea how !

We live in the same house we bought forty two years ago and have spent very little time apart !

We have never had a cross word and agree on everything ! Yeah right !

WE DO actually share the same bank account and if there's ONE piece of advice I would pass on it would be to do exactly that ! NO SECRETS !

You'll sleep better !

THE WOMAN WHO TOLD MY FUTURE WIFE NOT TO MARRY ME SEEN HERE WITH ME AND HER OTHER FOUR SONS WHO DON'T WANT TO BE IDENTIFIED AS BEING MY BROTHERS !

I took my new wife on honeymoon to the South Of France in a continuously breaking down Fiat 500 after spending much of our wedding night with an AA man on Dover Docks and that was NOT a good idea ! My mother's words of warning nearly came true !

TRUE ROMANCE ? I'D SAY SO !

And I still make her laugh so that's good !

SALLY...PART 197. I NEARLY GOT APOLOGISED TO YESTERDAY !

Shirley is a reluctant cook but what she does cook is almost always delicious and I tell her so even though she then generally tells me to get stuffed !

After all, I know which side my bread is buttered on !

Despite being a decade or so beyond most men's retirement age I still work from 8am 'til 11pm most days and was hard at it yesterday when I was summoned for my lunch, two chicken pies, leeks and mashed potatoes which come from a cleverly frozen package !

I instantly stop doing whatever it is I am doing and scuttle through to the kitchen and try to not let my chair squeal on the oaken floor as I take my place at the bottom of the table !

I sat turning on my laptop as quietly as I could as even pressing a key lightly can cause irritation and jumped as Shirley yowled in shock, swore like one of the actors on the American Murder Series she watches and grabbed at an airborne chicken pie which landed in the washing up bowl which was thankfully mostly empty !

"Move that bloody machine back before I wrap it round your head !" she roared as she slammed the plate down in front of me hard enough to break the table let alone the china ! "And don't tell me you're hungry again today or I WILL kill you !"

She then also slammed a small glass of water down beside the plate which mostly emptied onto the plate after leaping about two feet into the air !

I ate every scrap and not out of fear before rising to rinse the gravy slime from the plate before it set hard but didn't go as far as actually washing the thing as I would only have left some microscopically tiny particle somewhere which would have got me bellowed at !

Some time later I'm afraid I DID get bellowed at as Shirley found a pile of mashed potato in the sink !

She thrust the perfectly white lump of mash under my nose and scoffed !

"I heard you at the sink you little sneak, washing your dinner away ! You must know that you should NEVER wash food down the sink as it rots in the pipes and it'll be YOU who has to pay for the men to come and dig up your room to get at the drains !"

"I did NOT wash any food down the sink Shirley as I ate every scrap !"

"But unlike you I am not as deaf as a post and heard you doing it !"

"Shirley, I was simply trying to get in your good books by rinsing a small amount of congealed gravy off my plate before it set as hard as concrete !"

"Well you'll NEVER do that so just admit it ! I'm not stupid ! I HEARD you !"

"Shirley, I DID NOT SCRAPE MASHED POTATO INTO THE SINK AND FOR A START THERE'S NO GRAVY ON IT !"

"OH DEAR GOD I'M MARRIED TO A LIAR !"

And with that she disappeared and my weakened heart flashed through another hundred ventricular
ectopics without actually killing me !

Some time later my door opened quietly and not with the usual YANK !

"Erm, I might have been mistaken." she almost whispered !

"Oh REALLY ?  And what has brought you to this conclusion ?"

"Well you know when I shouted out ? The steam from one of your pies had shot out and scalded my hand as as I tried to put it on your plate it flew across the worktop and I think it might have scalped the top of the mashed potato which I now realise was what was in the sink as I did notice that the pile I had spooned out had gone strangely flat."

"So are you saying that you might NOT have heard me emptying food down the sink and that I won't have to pay for men to dig up my workroom floor and that I'm NOT a liar ?"

"yes", she said very quietly !

"Well if that's an apology I accept it !"

And with her usual look of defiance somewhat less defiant she returned to her next murder !

SALLY...Part 196. ONLY A FOOL CRITICIZES HIS WIFE !

PERHAPS I WAS A BIT HASTY !

It all began around midday yesterday when my wife, deeply absorbed in yet another twelve part Scandi-noir opened my door and groaned, "You might have noticed that I'm not cooking anymore, so if you're hungry you'll have to sort yourself out !"
"OK." I said drily between clenched teeth and over the sound of a bubblingly empty stomach !
"Does that mean you ARE hungry but are too lazy to get off your backside and do something about it ?"
"No." I squeaked from my sewing machine chair from where I was involved in finishing off fourteen market traders money belts, seven large tool rolls and two pencil rolls ! "I'm not hungry at all !" as I bravely held my head high despite feeling faint from lack of food !
She returned to her Kindle, or was it her Asus or was it her Pavilion, each of which she has propped up in front of her whilst watching three things at once AND talking via the internet to either her sister or her daughter simultaneously in the way that only a woman can !
Two minutes later my door was forcefully pulled open again !
"Right, I suppose you ARE hungry though how you can possibly be when you only had your Shredded Wheat an hour ago is beyond me so what do you want ?"
"No really, I'm fine." I wheedled, trying my best not to irritate her: a skill I have failed to hone to a fine art !
"I could do you a couple of pears that are on the turn and need eating but I'm NOT cooking !" she sneered !
"Yes you said and the pears would be just fine !" I replied pleasantly !
They were there in a flash, washed, cored and cut with as little love as any pair of pears could have been prepared with and she was away, also in a flash but not before my eagle eye had spotted a black bit unremoved and unappetising !
"Shirley !" I somehow found the courage to call out, "You have left a black bit on the end of one of the pear quarters !"

MY MOTHER WOULDN'T HAVE SERVED ME THIS !

That, in hindsight, was a mistake !
She returned in a flash, blasting the words, "WHAT ? WHAT ?" at my quivering shoulders ! "Where's a 'BLACK BIT' ?"
"The..the..the..there ." I mewled.
" THAT almost invisible mark is where I pulled the stalk out and is completely edible ! GOD have you ever seen what I leave of a pear and without pathetically coreing it first you wimp ?"
"Yes." I whispered, "The stalk."
"EXACTLY ! THE STALK ! God, if your accolytes knew what a pathetic man I married they would leave your Photographic Groups in DROVES ! DROVES I tell you ! What's it called now ?"
"I did done well." I ventured timidly
"WHAT ?" she bellowed
"I did done well" I ventured even more timidly.
"What does that mean ? It's RUBBISH !"
"I thought it was funny."
"FUNNY ? You wouldn't know FUNNY if it smacked you in the FACE ! What is self-delusion like is what I'd like to know 'cos you are SERIOUSLY self-delusional ! Now I insist that you take a photo of that 'BLACK BIT' and put it on your, what is it, Oh yes your pathetic, 'I DID DONE WELL' and see if any of THEM think it's funny !"

OK, I SHOULD HAVE KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT !

This hilarious banter carried on for a few more moments until she turned and stumbled over the same raised doorstep that separates my room from the rest of the house that she's stumbled over for the last thirty years and went back to get terrified by yet another diabolical murder !

Oh we do make each other laugh !