I was putting up some pictures and doing a couple of other little things my daughter had asked me to do for her yesterday, when she said
'do you want to stay for dinner?' I think I must have ummed because she said
"well I'm not forcing you' in a sharp tone before walking off without me answering.
I did um, not because there is anything wrong with her cooking, she turns out some lovely grub because she had me as a teacher.
I ummed because it's takes her an absolute fucking age to get anything on a plate and in front of you to eat.
Now it was just after 4:00pm and I'm thinking
'fuck it's gonna be about 7:30pm before I actually get anything in my stomach, can I wait that long' this was going on past experience, a lot of it.
Anyway, I did stay for dinner and sure enough 7:00pm passed and still nothing though it was being cooked I could tell that by the smell because she won't let me in her kitchen when she cooks.
So about 7:20pm it arrives, up it comes and lovely it looks, I can't wait to woof this down, i'm starving.
'Pass the pepper please I say',
'You'll need to take that wrapper bit off first' says her partner as he passes it to me,
'it's a new pot' It's one of those clear plastic pepper grinders filled with black peppercorns and after a couple of seconds I manage to get the cellophane wrapper bit off, take half a grinding rotation and the entire fucking contents empty out on to my dinner.
Time stood still, as we all just stared at my dinner with varying degrees of horror, even my grandson who would normally burst out laughing wasn't sure what to do. After what seemed an age of being frozen, soundlessly in motion, I said 'oh poop' and we all broke into laughter, I think just becasue it was quicker than summing up the tears to cry.
There wasn't much to rescue and after refusing everyone's offer of their dinner I brightened up when told there was apple pie and custard for afters......I'm thinking
'surely you have to have some befores to have afters'Truth be told I could have wept when I saw the lovely dinner I waited for so long, topped with a mountain of black peppercorns and it was only my grandson sitting there stopping me saying something a lot more expressive than 'poop' I was absolutely gutted.