His better half was on a socially-distanced night out with her friends from work and for the first time since the start of lockdown, he had the flat to himself - glorious. Opening the fridge door, the beer he’d been chilling specially for tonight, called out to him. He grabbed a bottle and chugged about half of it straightaway. He went to close the door but thought he better grab a couple more. As he reached for the beers he noticed that there wasn’t much else in the fridge….he’d need to eat later. Problem solved – a menu from the local Indian takeaway was stuck on the fridge door …. and they delivered!
A handful of beers, a takeaway menu and his phone in hand he went back into the living room and slumped in the armchair. OK what next….? Telly. The remote…..? On the TV stand. What is the point of having remote control if you’re going to keep it next to the TV? It wasn’t until he’d emptied the first beer that he hauled himself out of the armchair to get the remote.
The numbers on the channel listing went past 500 but despite all that choice, there was still nothing that he wanted to watch - just the same old films, the usual repeats and ‘reality programmes’. He swore there’d been a better choice when there had only been four channels. “Reality my arse” he thought as he opened another beer. Another trip to the kitchen was narrowly avoided by the realisation that the bottles had twist-off caps. Phew…. Out of desperation he settled on the football. Not because he was really that interested, but it seemed the laddish option –sort of fitted the theme of the night.
He sat back to enjoy the beer and then time sort of ground to a halt……..
…………he was hauled from the deep well of his slumber by his phone. It was his missus – what did she want at……..9:27? If she’d had words with Tracy again and wanted picking up, there was no chance, he’d had too much to drink already. By the sounds of her voice, she was a little worse for wear as well…he could always tell, her accent was stronger when she’d been drinking. So much for a night in by himself. “Hello, chick. What’s up?”
“You, that’s what” she replied, taking him by surprise. He rolled his eyes, ‘gonna be one of those calls’ he thought, so he put her on loudspeaker and let her have her say. Apparently, he’d been really insensitive over the last few days … only the last few days? They’d been cooped up in the flat together for the last three months and he actually thought they’d done really well. They'd both gone through periods when they felt irritated by life, the universe and everything but not once had they been upset with each and they hadn’t had a single row in all that time. Sure, they were very different people but he'd always felt those differences were the glue. He did his thing, she did hers and it wasn’t suffocating - it worked. At least he thought it worked. Seems like she had a different take on things right now!!
Just then, the away team scored an equalizer…half an hour to go and now the match started to become interesting. “What’s that”, she asked? “Just the telly honey, I was watching the match…..”. Talk about red rags......that made her even more irate. “Where do you think we’re going?”. How was he supposed to answer a question like that? He paused to try and think of an answer that wouldn’t dig him any deeper and rapidly came to the conclusion that there wasn’t one. Women were so good at asking questions in such a way that whatever answer you gave, it got you in more trouble.
Just then his stomach rumbled…ah yes, hunger. He picked up the takeaway menu…..fancy a biryani? He thought better of asking....that really wasn’t going to help the situation! By then, she must have decided she’d waited too long without an answer and shouting “I can’t believe you can be such a prick”, hung up.
He exhaled slowly. He must make sure he’s was in bed when she got in tonight, even if it meant pretending to be asleep. Hopefully by the morning, things would blow over. Now, that take away……
Brilliant!!! Love it!!! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 💚🐁💚