Old Things, Past Loves

Old Things, Past Loves ©

By 

Michael Casey

I was thinking about a title for today’s talk but Rupert Murdoch didn’t phone, but he’ll have more time now, so maybe he will. He does Radio as well you know, and as Terry Wogan used to say, I have the perfect face for radio, if only Rupert stops cursing and gives me a chance, the Sky is my limit.

I was going to write about Tidying Up but I checked my list and I did that a year ago. So I’m talking about a 1^st cousin to that instead. As I look about  the room my eye rests and a memory comes back. In front of me is my Movelat pain killer gel, I wish I never laid eyes on it, so many memories come flooding back as I look at my big tube of Movelat. Sticky memories of pain, not love. Cursing the pain and cursing for it to be brought to me, as I scream in pain. No exaggeration folks, it really is that bad at time.

I look further around the room and wonder where the smell is coming from, it’s my daughter’s school shoes, yes, girls’ feet do stink. So I gather up all their shoes and sling them into the kitchen, we can say it’s the wife’s cooking that is to blame. What’s the other smell, then I see Totoro our cat scratching by the door, she has farted, see all my girls  stink. I tell them I don’t smell, I am the clean one, they reply my Ck One is not to their liking. Should I just dab Jeyes Fluid drain cleaner behind my ears?

I have an old cardboard box on the shelf beside me, I’ve saved it just in case I have to return something, normally it’d go in the recycle bin, but I’ve saved it for now. I used to save my Clarks shoe boxes too, but they did come in handy when Totoro was a kitten. Totoro used to hide under the sink unit, and we were afraid she would pooh there too. So Clarks came to the rescue, we blocked off the area under the sink, and our noses were saved.

I have 3 pots of Shamrock besides me too, so I may have to relocate them soon. I also have it growing outside along the garden wall, and no matter how often our Oriental gardener, the wife that is, hacks and mows it down, it always comes back, deep roots, rather like Family.

I have a lot of paintings too on my wall, I always dreamt of paintings, after my mother gave me a print on cardboard which she had bought for 10p at a jumble sale. I still have it on my bedroom wall, 50 years later. However I did over the years replace prints with paintings, the dustmen used to call my house the Art Gallery, in the days when dustmen used to come up the entry to collect your dustbin. Now I only have real paintings, I haven’t bought any new ones in 20 years, being married and having a wife and kids means you can’t afford to spend a penny on yourself. If I want to gaze on beauty I can always look in the mirror. What, you are all so cruel, laughing at the eye of the beholder.

Speaking of mirrors, we’ll be abandoning most mirrors too, a mirror is a nice thing to have, it brightens up a room, you can also take selfies. Though I only ever have stupid photos of myself, I am honest about my looks, I do weigh more than the British Heavyweight champion who won last night, I’m very compact. So as I was saying a nice mirror is useful, you can check your hair and eyebrows before you leave the house, you don’t want to frighten anybody with your looks, though if you are a heavyweight  boxer you DO want to put the fear of God into an opponent,  maybe the Champ doesn’t use a mirror at all.

Moving on to the kitchen we have cups galore, my small daughter collects them, so we have 20 mugs and cups in the cupboard. It’s almost as if they breed in there, so there will be a cull, or maybe we’ll just abandon them. Cup abandoned with mismatched saucer, a bit like marriage really, chipped and battered, pattern worn away, but still useful?

When you get to pack your clothes that will be a revelation, the state of your underpants. How droopy are your drawers, how washed out are the colours, how many holes in your pants, is the pipping at the edged coming off. But that’s just my neigbours, or is that what my neigbours say about me? You would have to be a bird on the washing line to know the truth, or a pigeon pooping on my washing as they perch from tree to tree. How holy or is it holey are my pants. You’ll never know, not unless you seduce me, just to see the state of my pants. Are you laughing now? Or just violently sick?

I better finish now, it’s time to bring in all my washing before the rain comes, but as I haven’t got any clean clothes I’ll just streak into the garden and stand there naked picking my clothes off the line and getting dressed. It will be a treat for the squirrels and my neighbours, and if they don’t like what they see then NUTS to them.