Tuesday 2 March 2010

Uh-oh.  I am well and truly deep in the human-house.  And it's entirely my fault.

I was already hovering over the thin, fragile, line that separates "acceptable behaviour" and "extreme wickedness".  A couple of nights ago I watched as my partner, after downloading a weemail, accidentally dropped her mobile 'phone into the toilet.  Oh yes.

To flush, or not to flush?  That was the question.  Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of one's outraged neighbours, whose drains have been blocked by a mobile 'phone - or to plunge arms into a sea of fresh urine?  My partner, after swift deliberation, opted for the latter.  The expression on her face was a joy to behold as she swiftly retrieved the sunken handset and, afterwards, began a thorough and lengthy scrubbing of her hands and arms (she says she still doesn't quite feel clean).  I endeavoured to flee the scene before I was noticed - but, alas.  My partner saw me scuttling away, and was far from heartened by my derisive laughter.

The mobile, naturally, died a swift death after its sudden submersion and could not be revived.  Happily, my partner is on a contract for her 'phone so today a new, more whizzy, handset has been supplied.  The matter of my disrespectful amusement at her predicament was, therefore, put aside.

If only fate had left it there.

In the early hours of this morning, however, a situation somewhat more serious arose.

My partner happened to wake up suddenly from an unpleasant dream at around 2.00am.  Before she laid herself back down to resume her slumbers, she found that my sleeping form had involuntarily manoeuvred its way to the very edge of our bed and that I was, in fact, only a few precarious millimetres away from tumbling backwards onto the floor.  As she stretched out her arms to gently move me to a safer position, my inherent body-sensors picked up on my imminent danger and pricked me into alert wakefulness.  Unaware of my partner's proximity I sprang, grasshopper-like, backwards away from the edge of our bed.  In doing so, the top of my mighty head collided - accompanied by a sickeningly firm sound of impact - with the base of my partner's jaw.  And this caused her to involuntarily bite clean through her own tongue.

With an horrendous shriek, my partner leapt from our bed, clasping her hand to her mouth.  Blood fountained forth from between her fingers, and two pools of it had already formed in her cupped hands before she reached the bedroom door.  Her tongue began instantly to swell, and the poor maiden could not even speak to chide me.

After grasping a roll of absorbent paper-tissue from the bathroom, my partner staggered downstairs to the telephone to ring NHS Direct, who were most helpful with her predicament.  My partner had to call them back in the morning, and then wait for them to call her back at home because - as you will recall - her mobile 'phone was broken.  This then meant that my partner had to telephone her work colleagues to inform them that she would be late arriving at the office and also had to explain why.

Fortunately, the tongue-swelling had ceased by morning, although my partner continued to sound like Jamie Oliver for the rest of the day.  She is only allowed to have soft foods like soup and mashed potato for at least three days.  There are two actual puncture wounds in her tongue (one on each side) from where her incisors went in, and around four lesser marks from her wisdom teeth - and one cannot exactly put a plaster on one's tongue.  As well as the pain, light-headedness from blood-loss, and fatigue from the lost sleep, my partner has had to endure mockery from her colleagues.  "It's on the tip of your tongue...", "Don't bite your tongue...", "Bit of a tongue-twister...", etc.  We also have a permanent reminder of the episode at home, in the bloodstained telephone directory.

It was approximately 12.30pm this afternoon before my partner could even bring herself to look at me.

She says she is going to sell me to the "Poultry Pizzlers"-type people, who make dubiously meat-related products to sell at the cheapest possible price to schools for kiddies' dinners.  She reckons they'd get a good 50 - 100 "Pizzlers" out of my various component parts.  A colleague commented that she would be better advised to sell me to the local gypsies and a further Judas suggested enrolling me on a Korean cookery course.  I DID get a walk and my dinner today, so my partner must surely be joking, mustn't she?

Mustn't she...?

I'm not allowed to tell my Kipper/Rex/Misadventure story tonight, as a punishment.  Instead, I have to sit quietly and think about why I must consider the consequences of my actions before I take them, so I am going to go and do that now.

She is joking, isn't she...?

Good night.