Bad Son, The Bitch and the Wardrobe

A blog is not just for entertainment - it also serves as a chronicle of events.

This is particularly helpful when a body starts to dote. Or, as is more politically correct, when a body starts to suffer age-related mental degeneration.

I’m starting to get scared. There are parts of my life that are entirely lost to me. I don’t have the faintest memory of what was said or what happened.

It seems to me that it was a mere month or so ago that the door fell off my antique pine wardrobe. It took a week or two before Bert got round to fixing it, but fix it he did. I had to help him because wardrobe doors with mirrors are heavy and it was a two-person job.

But last week the door refused to open. It was a stuck door. Bert diagnosed it as being hinge-bound, which is obviously some sort of joinerman talk. Says I to him,

So you didn’t fix it properly the last time you sorted it?

Did I sort this door before?

You did.

No I didn’t.

You did. I remember I suggested going to get a replacement hinge in B&Q and you laughed at me scornfully saying you’d never get a decent hinge in B&Q.

I’ve never worked at this door before.

You did! I remember it well. It was only about a month before Christmas. Do you not remember?

Nope.

You have to be winding me up. You must remember it.

I was worried. Was Bert losing it? Did I dream it?

But no. It was shortly after I hurt my back and that was this winter. I’ve got a note of it on the blog. So it must have been sometime after that.

During the fixing of the wardrobe door Bert went downstairs to fetch his torch to cast some light on the matter.

An hour later he says to me,

Where’s the torch? Have you seen it?

Yes. Upstairs. By the wardrobe. Don’t you remember?

Nope.

Then Billy came round and I told him what had happened. Bert told Billy that I was completely mad and that he’d originally fixed the wardrobe door about a year ago. I disagreed. If it had been a whole year ago I’d have totally forgotten.

So – from now on I’m recording all the stuff that Bert and I are likely to argue about in the future and this is my first entry.

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It was so Bert’s turn to clean his mother’s room. I reminded him of this and he took umbrage.

Do I ever go on at you about things you have to do?

Of course not! That is because I do the things I have to do and don’t need people to go on at me.

So I decided that if he had made no shape to start it by 8pm that I would do it myself. And that I would do it as a martyr would do it. And so it was.

The funny thing was I started it in a martyred rage and ended up quite enjoying it and I think Pearlie sort of enjoyed it too.

So let this blog record that on 1^st February, 2009, Nelly thoroughly cleaned Pearlie’s room and on the same date Bert let her fire go out. Yay! Sucks to be you Bert. Bad Son!