Do you remember lollies? As kids, we could get a mixed bag for
sixpence, and the lollies were mostly shaped like things - bananas,
milk-bottles, raspberries, snakes, false teeth. Then there were
those pastel-coloured lollies called Conversations, which were the
delight of dentists everywhere for their capacity to shatter teeth with
their cement-like consistency. Conversations always had mottoes
on them - earnest platitudes mostly - like "be kind", or statements of
the bleeding obvious, like "Roses are Red". Smaller than a
fortune cookie, the message could never run to more than two or three
words.
We have a wonderful cinema near our place in the country. It's
the local community hall, with individual leather seats, red velvet
curtains, a piano, and a little kiosk that sells tea and coffee in
china mugs, and best of all, bags of mixed lollies.
Mr. S regards mixed lollies as the sign of a messy mind. He
always buys a bag of jelly snakes, and then engages in that wonderful
ritual of putting one end in his mouth, and stretching the other as far
as it will go.
Me, I'm a sucker for the mixed lollies. When I was a kid, we
would lick the base of the raspberries, and stick them on the end of
our nose, so that we could pretend to be Rudolf, the Red-Nosed
Reindeer. The false teeth might have been a suitable denture for
a garden gnome, but today it looks like a bad prosthesis for an adult.
I'm investigating the contents of my bag of lollies, and I suddenly
sense the opportunity for revenge for the great underwear fiasco of
several weeks ago.
I quietly lick the base of a raspberry, and stick it on the end of my
nose, and slip in the false teeth. Mr. S is deeply engrossed in
watching the ads. (all slides, of course). His personal favorite
is the house ad. that says "Visit our sister cinema in Thirsk,
NorthYorkshire". As it comes up, he turns to me to joke about the
throbbing metropolis of Thirsk, as he always does. I treat him to
my most dazzling smile.
His reaction is worth the wait. A muffled shriek, loss of control
of the mug of tea, followed by genuine horror. I hadn't allowed
for the fact that his eyesight is extremely poor - in fact, he's
legally blind in one eye - and, of course, it's half-dark. Poor
Mr. S. - what I think is merely funny, he is seeing as some sort of
giant injury. So when I whip out the false teeth, and take off
the raspberry, it doesn't actually help. He thinks my face is
melting.
Order is eventually restored, but only after a brief flurry of
righteous indignation. I hand him a Conversation. It says
LUV U. We have a brief snog, but not too much, as we don't want
to be thrown out by the elderly usher. Mercifully, the film
starts (The Station-Master - great flick!), so I can sit there in the
dark, and he can't see me grinning from ear to ear. Tee Hee.
|
Change of Life 
