the horrors of polyester

I may have studied fashion promotion, but the meaning of what this actually is completely escapes my family. However, they do seem to grasp the ‘fashion’ element. My grand father in particular seems to have caught on and is even evaluating what his trousers say about him. I would like to think my efforts at explaining lifestyle branding have rubbed off, but after the following episode I can see my attempts are futile.

Now let me paint you a picture. This isn’t an old man with a stick, swimming relentlessly around memories of the war. This is Grandad who is probably fitter and healthier than me, and you for that matter. He cycles sixty miles sometimes three days a week, plays tennis, grows numerous vegetables and ferries the entire family back and forth between various appointments on demand. His only request being that he is allowed a nap after lunch.

Usually we enter in to pointless rounds of stubborn debates over the definition of shepherds pie or the possibility that the meaning of the earth and everything in it is 22, and I am given no slack in consideration of my youth, (he is pretty big on anti-agism too). Yet he will sheepishly enter the dining room, modelling an impulse pair of what he says are ‘practical, I’ve jut got off my boat and going for a glass of port’ trousers . A way of speaking I am sure he as adopted from me, in which an entire garment will summarise your every dream and whim. “Well?” he asks.

I look. He is modelling, what look suspiciously like an unruly spewing of polyester trousers, in a muted duck egg blue that do no favour for his lean frame, and are not only ugly trousers but are the sort of item that would provoke hours of rebuke on the terrors of polyester from my friends and I. There are many, believe me; the static, the noise, the undeniable man made sheen and unsightly way the fabric falls, in that it doesn't fall but merely hangs in a desperate manner.

I am sure, after reading this, he will storm in dramatically demanding I take back this clear line of unprovoked abuse at his beautiful new trousers. I could almost buy in to his daydream of yachts and expensive liquor, if the polyester were cotton or linen and the colour was crisp white, but dirty blue polyester trousers Grandad say only one thing - OLD! And that is one thing your trousers should never say about you.

in the dentist's chair

It is funny really that we hand over forty quid or more for the joy of having our mouths wedged open to accommodate various unspecified machinery. I can usually cope with it by blocking out the heavy breathing of my bemused dentist and the metal tray of very questionable tools, by drifting off to chew over some thoughts.

What annoys and bewilders me is my dentist's assumption that I know what he means when he points at various fuzzy shapes on my x-ray and mutters technical words that I'm apparently meant to understand; concluding I must surely need a filling. I retort that I am sure I don't. He injects my gum so I feel like half of my face is at a severe disadvantage should I need to smile and converse intelligently in the next half an hour. As we all wait for it to numb, the dentist and his assistant sit poised with various invasive (and in my opinion somewhat suspicious) looking instruments. I surrender to their hopefully experienced and well trained hands whilst my mouth locks open and my spine shivers from the drill.

I could probably have retained my dignity even after I gesture like a wounded bird at the pain, and attempt a stifled reply from behind the protruding drill whilst I'm cross questioned about my career path, - but as I feel a cold line of dribble running down my chin my former self takes one look at the sorry mess I've become and bolts out the door.

1am encounter / a spiders tale

I can't sleep.

A spider, that would have frankly been more at home in the Amazon, was loitering by my bookcase just underneath an oversized edition of 'Degas by Himself'. Very suspicious. I tried a humane capture, honestly I did, despite his obviously evil intentions. I ushered him towards a cup sternly, but he was having none of it and promptly bolted across the terrain of carpet.

What else could I do but honorably bash it on the head with last weeks Grazia?

I text K, who informs me that spiders come inside to mate at this time of year. A great comfort- fucking hell I'm probably providing low- level accommodation for the entire extended family. They are probably all in mourning for dear uncle Pete, unceremoniously murdered south of the washing basket. It's typical, I can't help thinking that the prickling feeling on my feet is not just my duvet, but an army of angry relatives, getting in to position to preform a complex 'coup de main'.

Taps dripping too. Will my torment never end?

___

I was waiting for Larry, (earwig/ renowned drunk.) We sometimes take a walk at the weekends, get away from the kids. Landlady never seems to notice. She is usually pissed at the weekends anyway so even when I've almost run over her foot she is oblivious. So she spots me. Starts yelling "look, if you come quietly i'll release you outside by the wheelie bins." Well, sod that, it was raining hard and I was due back for dinner. I made a run for it. She's half blind anyway without her glasses on so I thought what the hell. Then THWACK! I'm squished uncomfortably between the god awful brown rug she brought last tuesday and a flimsy magazine. Luckily her hearts not in it, but she screams shrilly and I play dead whilst she parades me around the house to prove I was a terrifying threat. Soon as she puts me down I'll send the signal. They'll attack at dawn. Shame I'd paid the rent already.