I understand blood, and I understand pain
There can be no life without it: never doubt it, brother
I'm a mother
- Chrissie Hynde, "Mother"
"So would you like a wee brother or a wee sister?" asks the checkout lady, with a slightly lilting tone. She's a mischievous and unmaliciously cynical woman in her early forties, very worldly-wise, always cracking offhand jokes and making customers laugh in a way I really like. Anyone venturing even a giggle in reply had better be ready to be answered with a cackle that's almost a trademark of the store, but all she gets from the wee boy is a thoughful silence as he solemnly returns the chocolate bars to the display, surely what she had in mind anyway. A smart cookie, this woman. I nearly went to the younger woman on the other till but now I'm glad I deferred doing that. The best shouldn't enemy the good.
"None of the above," I offer, before anyone else thinks of it. I'm rewarded with a quick, wicked flash of the eyes from the woman and a slightly awkward laugh from the mother (and mother-to-be) too, back from scanning the magazine shelves with unwise inattention while she waited for me to pay. I haven't bought much: I'm single. She's buying plenty, but no magazines. The difference between TWIX and SEX is that SEX, always the largest word on almost every cover, isn't actually provided inside women's magazines (or men's for that matter) so grabbing them off the shelves doesn't work. Besides: the horror. Not a problem with chocolate, unless you count bathroom scales delivering their inevitable verdict.
"You'll leave those alone, we've yoghurts for later," seems to stop further attempts to increase the family shopping bill, or perhaps it's being reminded that it won't be me-me-me for much longer. Or not just me-me-me. My mother says I didn't take it very well either. A wee sister, by the way.
Sisters are supposed to help you with girls, but mine never did. Or maybe that's just older sisters, I don't remember. Even if not, this kid is far too young to be interested in much apart from chocolate, and even after that he'll be pulling legs off spiders for quite a while before pulling knickers off legs takes priority.
I think of something else and have to suppress a snort. The checkout woman's sharp up-look: not unfriendly, but alert - even suspicious - precludes a smile and a shake of the head. I can't share it though, it's too.. too much. I evade with a sotto voce "Get in!", still playing the boy. It's weak cos it's been too long, but it's enough. I'm not really a wit and she knows it. Her smile isn't false when she hands me my change.
According to another, slightly more up-market women's magazine (but not up-market enough not to have SEX in huge letters on the cover), wearing knickers made of nylon rather than cotton may have been the cause of a problem years ago for which yoghurt again provided the solution. In a memorable phrase my then-girlfriend's magazine also explained that "a partner can help you do this". As I was her's, I helped her: also memorably. The magazine didn't say how much yoghurt you'd need, but natural yoghurt isn't and wasn't pricey, even on a student budget. I bought loads. If we'd known what we were doing it would have been ludicrously excessive, but because neither of us had a clue we didn't anticipate that, even with her lying on her back, hardly any of what I applied to the affected area with much careful and dilligent spoonwork would stay there. Nor did we anticipate the ferocity with which it would escape, or the surprisingly contemptuous sound effects accompanying its rejection. We were both in absolute, well, hysterics.
Eventually we declared a partial victory and agreed, still sniggering, to try again the next day with more time and a warmer spoon. Or series of warmer spoons. Or just warmer yoghurt. A more sensitive partner than me might have twigged that there therefore wasn't much point leaving the existing spoon in the pot given that the pot would be spending the night in the fridge, but I've never threatened records on that score. I'd already bought her some new cotton underwear though, but (for my blushes) not at the same time as the yoghurt. Not that I could have: back then supermarkets didn't sell clothes. She wore one pair under her hired gown that evening to the hall revue, and I took them off for her later that night before we stepped together into a warm shower. Lo-and-behold: problem solved.
I quite fancy the woman on the other till so I'm hoping she's not married, whereas I know the first one is because her husband works away a lot and she's never really the same when he's not around. Just as irrepressible, but the twinkle's missing. I guess that's love, right? Or three kids, or something. But the other one is sweet. I was thinking of telling her as much, or at least a little of that much, before trying "Have you got a boyfriend?" and being ready to reply with "Would you like one?" or "Would you like another one?" as appropriate. But if she'd fired back with that her husband wouldn't be keen - note the crucial difference between wouldn't and won't in that reply - I wouldn't have had an answer ready, so I took the shorter queue and the coward's way out. Besides: the horror, the horror.
Years later we told our yoghurt story in the pub, riffing off each other a bit to keep the table guessing, and another bloke topped it with an even better story, far more and far too disgusting to record, which he said afterwords he'd never told anyone else and wouldn't have done that night either if we hadn't spun our's out so well. Later I found out they were sleeping together. But that surely wasn't why she was doubled-up with belly-laughter, totally incapable, very nearly knocking her drink all over the floor. I was laughing as well, but nothing like as hard. I didn't know about them, then, but I knew it was over: I hadn't heard her laugh like that in ages.
I usually get twenty quid out before I buy groceries and the time before last my total was £19.72, the year of my birth, which I mentioned, stupidly, to the woman I like: if she likes me she won't reveal her age yet. Anyway, last time it was £19.85: halfway through Thatcher, not that long after the miner's strike (my cousin Andy was a miner, then) and the Falklands; me in school, hating it but working hard anyway to make mum happy. I remember the time, but nothing about the specific year, so I couldn't think of anything to say about that. Nor did I think to glance at her ring finger: I'll do that next time.
Outside in the car park a lady is backing a 4x4 out of a parent-and-child space with an endless agony of cycles of the clutch and accelerator, making at best three inches progress at a time. As always I wonder why people don't reverse in, and why they buy cars they can't manoeuvre. Years ago my best mate's dad bought a second-hand Volvo estate in a dreadful mid-yellow vomit colour (I asked mine why he didn't get one: "If I still wanted to drive a tank I'd have stayed in the army", which was funny even before it became normal to see army vehicles coloured like sand - we were up against the Ordinary Decent Terrorists of the IRA in those days.) Mr Stevens had plank-set two neat wheel-strips of concrete along his driveway specially, and watching him back up and down in terror of dropping a tyre onto the pea-shingle was usually good for a laugh. But at least he'd reverse in. Was that 1985? No idea, but five or six years before Desert Storm sounds about right; I joined up after I graduated, so not in time for that one.
It's raining a bit but the clounds don't look too threatening, so, with the weight of the food I've bought pulling my shoulder-straps and pressing into the small of my back, I head diagonally across the car park towards the promenade. I much prefer to walk the long way home unless it's really sheeting down, and I actually quite like light, gentle rain.
"Saaarge! Hey, Saaarge! Look at this! Guys, look at this! Look at THIS!" For a split-second I'm distracted by an unlikely detail in the image, before I realise that the smear of blood between the model's legs isn't part of the picture, or rather isn't meant to be. "I thought rags didn't approve!!!" Jonesey's ecstatic face is bulging and twisting, distorting as if he's trying to accomodate some divine revelation, some joyous, vital, transcendental truth he alone can impart to all mankind, but Sgt Mitchell is no more impressed than I am (as he begins to make very clear to the crestfallen Private) and I'm already turning slowly on my heel towards the sun, squinting, scanning the cloudless sky. Only the fierce, fierce heat is moving the air; the mirage-glare from the sand is impossibly bright, and we've all of us here witnessed enough pornography for any day.
Needless to say I didn't have to take the spoon out of the pot, or the pot from the fridge, because the next morning the pot was in, not the fridge, but the bin. And the spoon had been washed. But I bet it wasn't when some drunken prat ate the yoghurt. Or a pratess, even, who might yet have stolen it for the same reason I bought it. We laughed at that, too.
[[[ Twix is a trademark of some chocolate company. -M ]]]
There can be no life without it: never doubt it, brother
I'm a mother
- Chrissie Hynde, "Mother"
"So would you like a wee brother or a wee sister?" asks the checkout lady, with a slightly lilting tone. She's a mischievous and unmaliciously cynical woman in her early forties, very worldly-wise, always cracking offhand jokes and making customers laugh in a way I really like. Anyone venturing even a giggle in reply had better be ready to be answered with a cackle that's almost a trademark of the store, but all she gets from the wee boy is a thoughful silence as he solemnly returns the chocolate bars to the display, surely what she had in mind anyway. A smart cookie, this woman. I nearly went to the younger woman on the other till but now I'm glad I deferred doing that. The best shouldn't enemy the good.
"None of the above," I offer, before anyone else thinks of it. I'm rewarded with a quick, wicked flash of the eyes from the woman and a slightly awkward laugh from the mother (and mother-to-be) too, back from scanning the magazine shelves with unwise inattention while she waited for me to pay. I haven't bought much: I'm single. She's buying plenty, but no magazines. The difference between TWIX and SEX is that SEX, always the largest word on almost every cover, isn't actually provided inside women's magazines (or men's for that matter) so grabbing them off the shelves doesn't work. Besides: the horror. Not a problem with chocolate, unless you count bathroom scales delivering their inevitable verdict.
"You'll leave those alone, we've yoghurts for later," seems to stop further attempts to increase the family shopping bill, or perhaps it's being reminded that it won't be me-me-me for much longer. Or not just me-me-me. My mother says I didn't take it very well either. A wee sister, by the way.
Sisters are supposed to help you with girls, but mine never did. Or maybe that's just older sisters, I don't remember. Even if not, this kid is far too young to be interested in much apart from chocolate, and even after that he'll be pulling legs off spiders for quite a while before pulling knickers off legs takes priority.
I think of something else and have to suppress a snort. The checkout woman's sharp up-look: not unfriendly, but alert - even suspicious - precludes a smile and a shake of the head. I can't share it though, it's too.. too much. I evade with a sotto voce "Get in!", still playing the boy. It's weak cos it's been too long, but it's enough. I'm not really a wit and she knows it. Her smile isn't false when she hands me my change.
According to another, slightly more up-market women's magazine (but not up-market enough not to have SEX in huge letters on the cover), wearing knickers made of nylon rather than cotton may have been the cause of a problem years ago for which yoghurt again provided the solution. In a memorable phrase my then-girlfriend's magazine also explained that "a partner can help you do this". As I was her's, I helped her: also memorably. The magazine didn't say how much yoghurt you'd need, but natural yoghurt isn't and wasn't pricey, even on a student budget. I bought loads. If we'd known what we were doing it would have been ludicrously excessive, but because neither of us had a clue we didn't anticipate that, even with her lying on her back, hardly any of what I applied to the affected area with much careful and dilligent spoonwork would stay there. Nor did we anticipate the ferocity with which it would escape, or the surprisingly contemptuous sound effects accompanying its rejection. We were both in absolute, well, hysterics.
Eventually we declared a partial victory and agreed, still sniggering, to try again the next day with more time and a warmer spoon. Or series of warmer spoons. Or just warmer yoghurt. A more sensitive partner than me might have twigged that there therefore wasn't much point leaving the existing spoon in the pot given that the pot would be spending the night in the fridge, but I've never threatened records on that score. I'd already bought her some new cotton underwear though, but (for my blushes) not at the same time as the yoghurt. Not that I could have: back then supermarkets didn't sell clothes. She wore one pair under her hired gown that evening to the hall revue, and I took them off for her later that night before we stepped together into a warm shower. Lo-and-behold: problem solved.
I quite fancy the woman on the other till so I'm hoping she's not married, whereas I know the first one is because her husband works away a lot and she's never really the same when he's not around. Just as irrepressible, but the twinkle's missing. I guess that's love, right? Or three kids, or something. But the other one is sweet. I was thinking of telling her as much, or at least a little of that much, before trying "Have you got a boyfriend?" and being ready to reply with "Would you like one?" or "Would you like another one?" as appropriate. But if she'd fired back with that her husband wouldn't be keen - note the crucial difference between wouldn't and won't in that reply - I wouldn't have had an answer ready, so I took the shorter queue and the coward's way out. Besides: the horror, the horror.
Years later we told our yoghurt story in the pub, riffing off each other a bit to keep the table guessing, and another bloke topped it with an even better story, far more and far too disgusting to record, which he said afterwords he'd never told anyone else and wouldn't have done that night either if we hadn't spun our's out so well. Later I found out they were sleeping together. But that surely wasn't why she was doubled-up with belly-laughter, totally incapable, very nearly knocking her drink all over the floor. I was laughing as well, but nothing like as hard. I didn't know about them, then, but I knew it was over: I hadn't heard her laugh like that in ages.
I usually get twenty quid out before I buy groceries and the time before last my total was £19.72, the year of my birth, which I mentioned, stupidly, to the woman I like: if she likes me she won't reveal her age yet. Anyway, last time it was £19.85: halfway through Thatcher, not that long after the miner's strike (my cousin Andy was a miner, then) and the Falklands; me in school, hating it but working hard anyway to make mum happy. I remember the time, but nothing about the specific year, so I couldn't think of anything to say about that. Nor did I think to glance at her ring finger: I'll do that next time.
Outside in the car park a lady is backing a 4x4 out of a parent-and-child space with an endless agony of cycles of the clutch and accelerator, making at best three inches progress at a time. As always I wonder why people don't reverse in, and why they buy cars they can't manoeuvre. Years ago my best mate's dad bought a second-hand Volvo estate in a dreadful mid-yellow vomit colour (I asked mine why he didn't get one: "If I still wanted to drive a tank I'd have stayed in the army", which was funny even before it became normal to see army vehicles coloured like sand - we were up against the Ordinary Decent Terrorists of the IRA in those days.) Mr Stevens had plank-set two neat wheel-strips of concrete along his driveway specially, and watching him back up and down in terror of dropping a tyre onto the pea-shingle was usually good for a laugh. But at least he'd reverse in. Was that 1985? No idea, but five or six years before Desert Storm sounds about right; I joined up after I graduated, so not in time for that one.
It's raining a bit but the clounds don't look too threatening, so, with the weight of the food I've bought pulling my shoulder-straps and pressing into the small of my back, I head diagonally across the car park towards the promenade. I much prefer to walk the long way home unless it's really sheeting down, and I actually quite like light, gentle rain.
"Saaarge! Hey, Saaarge! Look at this! Guys, look at this! Look at THIS!" For a split-second I'm distracted by an unlikely detail in the image, before I realise that the smear of blood between the model's legs isn't part of the picture, or rather isn't meant to be. "I thought rags didn't approve!!!" Jonesey's ecstatic face is bulging and twisting, distorting as if he's trying to accomodate some divine revelation, some joyous, vital, transcendental truth he alone can impart to all mankind, but Sgt Mitchell is no more impressed than I am (as he begins to make very clear to the crestfallen Private) and I'm already turning slowly on my heel towards the sun, squinting, scanning the cloudless sky. Only the fierce, fierce heat is moving the air; the mirage-glare from the sand is impossibly bright, and we've all of us here witnessed enough pornography for any day.
Needless to say I didn't have to take the spoon out of the pot, or the pot from the fridge, because the next morning the pot was in, not the fridge, but the bin. And the spoon had been washed. But I bet it wasn't when some drunken prat ate the yoghurt. Or a pratess, even, who might yet have stolen it for the same reason I bought it. We laughed at that, too.
[[[ Twix is a trademark of some chocolate company. -M ]]]
