March 1 2014. THE LAST WORD.

Flushed with success after getting The Trouble to stop soaking the pots for hours prior to washing up – well for the time being at least – I thought I’d try to stop her driving me spare with another of her annoying habits. This one happens every time I haven’t heard what she’s said to me, perhaps because my mind has been preoccupied with something else, and I’ve replied: “What’s that, my precious”, or more probably, ‘What?’” The Trouble then repeats just one of the words she had spoken. I’ll give you an example, of which I have thousands.

The Trouble: “Oh by the way I’ll need the car this afternoon.”

Me: “What’s that, my precious?”

The Trouble: “Car.”

What does she mean? That there’s something wrong with the car? That the car needs taxing/insuring? That the last time she drove it she hit something? (Likely) That she’s cleaned the inside? (Unlikely) That she’s cleaned the outside? (Very unlikely) That she’s put some petrol in it? (Impossible). I mean ‘Car’, it’s just a single word, coming to me out of the blue, a word which has no relevance on its own unless accompanied by a few other words.

I have of course tried to get her out of this terrible habit before.

The plan was that when she said just the one word in reply to my “What?” I would simply shake my head in a long-suffering manner and go back to reading my newspaper or whatever I’d been doing. Sometimes, when I put the plan into action, she would repeat the sentence in full. But more often than not, and probably in response to my ‘long-suffering ‘ bit, she would roll her eyes, make an annoyed clucking sound and carry on with what she’d been doing before she’d spoken.

There was, however, a big snag with my plan. Suppose what she had said was something important, something that needed my attention or, more importantly, something that might be to my advantage? What if the word in question was ‘Sex’ and the complete line was “Do you fancy having sex on the kitchen table this afternoon?” Not very likely I must admit. And more probably “How do you determine a sanke’s sex?” So I kicked the idea into touch.

My new idea stood much more chance. It wasn’t long before I got the opportunity to try it out.

“Shopping,” said The Trouble.

I pretended to search for a suitable response. “Er….Bag.”

“What?”

“Bag.”

“Bag? What do you mean, ‘Bag?’”

“What do you mean, ‘Shopping?’”

“What I said. That I’m going shopping later if you want anything.”

“Ah. I see. You see when you said ‘Shopping’ I thought we were having a game. I thought the idea was that you said a word then I said a word that you could put before or after it. Shopping….Bag. You see? Now it’s your turn to think of a word you can put before or after the new word. For example you could put ‘Old’ in front of it making ‘Old bag’.”

She hasn’t spoken to me since I said this, a few hours ago. So I suppose it’s worked, in a fashion.

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