Sun 9 Aug 2009
“Hmmm,” she says, holding it at arm’s length.
My sister, RonnieB, looks on, impressed.
“The antibiotics are obviously starting to work,” reports the LTLP. “The swelling’s gone down quite a bit. It’s still horrifically manky between these two toes, however. Would you like me to put on some more cream?”
I shake my head, experienced enough to know the right answer.
“I can’t believe how sympathetic you’re being,” gushes my sister. “Honestly, I wouldn’t go near it if this had happened to him.” She jerks her head contemptuously towards my brother-in-law, who quails in the corner. “You’re obviously a very caring person.”
“It’s only because there’s somebody else here,” I interject. “You wait – as soon as you leave it’ll be…” I tail off, following a sharp pain in my toe.
“Well just don’t expect that from me,” my sister continues to her husband. It is a shame how some men can get so hen-pecked.
“Right, you bastard,” snarls the LTLP, 0.0000001 seconds after my family have left to drive home. “I want a glass of wine, and I’m going to sit on this sofa and watch you load the dishwasher.”
“But I’ve got a bad foot!!!” I counter.
“And make sure it’s a cold one,” she adds.
I limp off to the fridge and get to work on the dishwasher. When it’s fully loaded, I have to wipe the surfaces and put the rest of the dinner stuff away.
“I think it’s starting to hurt once more,” I complain, as I get her a second glass of wine. But she is not listening; she is too busy looking up the Dignitas clinic on the laptop. It is time for some more antibiotics and some mank-cream.
August 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
An online degree does wonders! Good for Dr. LTLP!
August 9th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Anyone who has given birth will have no sympathy for a bad foot, even if it is gangrenous…
August 9th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
You have a sister? Must be an elder sister. No couple who’d first produced you would dare dip their toe in the gene pool ever again.
I notice from the phrase “brother-in-law” that Ronnie’s other half had the common decency to invest in a ring. Perhaps your sister should realize when she’s well off. At the very least she can thank her lucky stars she wasn’t born a Ptolemy. Or in Tennessee, come to that…
August 9th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Repeat this mantra at least 100 times a day ‘Jonny’s not hen pecked by the LTLP’
Now are you beginning to believe it?
August 9th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
Oh, JonnyB, darling, you’ve not learned a thing, have you? If your reply had been “I know, she’s really looking after me” then you’d have been the one sitting there with a glass of wine while she loaded the dishwasher. And if you’d thanked her again and told her how much you love and rely on her, you’d have prospects for tonight.
Mind you, then you’d have nothing to write about. Hm.. As you were, Jonny.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
You’re lucky to have a compassionate wife. They don’t grow on trees you know.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Must be a slow day for you to write up this utterly mundane and perfectly normal evening.
Note to the would-be-wise however: you might want to add in some flattering adjectives, along the lines of, “… snarls the LTLP, quirking her elegant eyebrow and lifting the perfect cupid’s bow of her lip.” I hear that clinic is not to fussy about entrance paperwork.
August 10th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Eeeeks, I don’t even go near my children’s manky feet, let alone the person that I live with. You’re spoilt, Jonny.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Apparently, I have been told by the LTLP, this post is ‘inaccurate’.
Inaccurate!!!!!!!
She is quibbling about the phrase ‘you bastard’. Women!!!
August 11th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
She does have a point, Jonny. “You colossal wuss” would seem more in character, not to mention having more by way of objective accuracy. A swift capitulation and correction might even get you out of doing the laundry as well. What’s to lose?
August 11th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
I think you need to go back to the foxy blonde and work the jealousy thing on the LTLP. You’ll know where you stand then. If you can stand by then, of course.
August 12th, 2009 at 5:19 am
No matter what JonnyB has one leg to stand on (it hasn’t spread to the other leg, hopefully?)!
As for common decency, well that’s the trouble with decency – it’s so common that a person of JonnyB’s aristocratic air wouldn’t go near it. Besides, he has much classier ways of showing that he sympathizes with the common man by loading the dishwasher and fetching the wine without complaint.
August 12th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I reckon it’s pretty well better now. That’s antibiotics for you – they are miraculous. Even though I was worked like a slave during the period when I was dangerously ill.
It is just my achilles that is giving me gyp now.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Does the foxy blonde sell support socks and linament?
August 12th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
In return for her kindess, did also you ‘rub her foot wid coc’nut ile’ [massage her feet with coconut oil]?
September 4th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
“It is time for some more antibiotics and some mank-cream.”
Surely ANTI-mank cream, unless………..?