Simpson, being furious.
As the gentle early morning sunlight creeps through the window, the mobile phone’s clock ticks over and it bursts into electronic lifeannouncing to anybody who might hear that it’s 5:55am and it’s time to get up.
I wake with a start, and throw an arm in the general direction of the bedside table, gropiing for the source of the noise. The impetus to silence the alarm is driven by my fear of the sleeping monster alongside me. Hell hath no fury like a woken W.
Having particular experience in the processes required between sliding out of bed, and leaving the house, some mental calculations kick off. Based on the existence (or lack, thereof) of an ironed shirt, stubble on my chin, and location of the contents of my bag, how many minutes will it takemeaninghow many minutes can I stay in bed for?
I peer at the wall. While thinking about nothing in particulara skill I work on regularlyI notice something about a foot tall and furry staring at me in the bedroom doorway.
Simpson is a rescue cat. That doesn’t mean he wears a cape and undertakes super-cat like rescue missions in response to some unlikely signalling system. It means W rescued him from a home for unwanted animals. By all accounts the start of his life was not a happy onewhich perhaps explains his general fury with the universe. When they met, he was recovering from surgery on a broken leg, which didn’t stop him from pimping himself expertly and winning W’s heart. Funnily enough, everybody who knew W predicted she would end up with the one eyed cat with three legs that nobody else loved.
So. I’m laid in bed, and Simpson is staring at me. I get the feeling that he is attempting mind control. Something along the lines of “Explode out of there you snivelling spawn”. It’s not working. He spends hours doing these futile mind control attempts. Perhaps that’s another reason for the furious stare.
In the spirit of Gandalf, I finally get up (a Jonathan is never latehe gets up precisely when he means to). Okay my robe is in the shower from yesterday. I’m going to have to traverse the landing and stairs with nothing on. Hopefully at just gone 6am there is going to be nobody on the green outside peering into upstairs windows. I wonder what the police record would say if somebody did see me? “Naked while being gawped at by a stranger through the upstairs landing window, through binoculars from the other side of the green”.
Walking down the stairs turns into an acrobatic murder attempt orchestrated by Simpson. Wherever my foot needs to fall, he gets there first. If this is an attempt to steer me in the direction of his food cupboard, it’s not working. He has more likelihood of breaking my neckthen he doesn’t get any damn food, does he.
Okay. Shower switched on. Waiting for it to warm up. A glance at the bathroom mirror nearly scares the crap out of me. How the hell does the guy with neat long-ish hair get turned into the neanderthal staring back in such a short space of time? And how the hell is the hair on that side of my head doing that?
After jumping in the shower I also discover that my hair has formed an intricate muddle of knots during the night. I also brace myself for our 50 year old plumbing to suddenly remember it’s supposed to be supplying hot water, and attempt to scald me to death. Luckily we get advance warning of this happening by a sudden change in water pressure. You don’t exactly get pummelled into the base of the shower, but you do know when it happens that it’s time to get the hell out of the shower
Why do towells not really work? Once your hair reaches a particular length, no matter how much, how violently, or how long you rub your hair with a towell for, it will not become any more dry than when you startedit just starts to form 1980s rock band stylingbut curiously only on the sides of your head.
After causing this mad professorial look, I stick my chin out at the mirror, and decide if today is going to really require a shave or not. This is really a “can I get away with it” decision. I don’t know if this is the same for girls with the bits they are expected to shave, but I hate shaving. It hurts, I often cut myself, and it takes ages. Razor blades cost a fortune too.
This will make you laugh. In an effort to ease shaving and not come quite so close to skinning myself, I have started using “King of Shaves Alpha Gel”. It describes itself as “software” can you believe that? Does that go into the same idiotic ideas box as toothbrushes that vibrate? In it’s defence, it is the best shaving cream I have ever found. While not a new thing for girls (who get all the best looking bathroom stuff), it has little beads of moisturiser suspended in the shaving geland menthol in it too, so you leave the bathroom with your nose cleared out too
Final step is aftershave. Message to girls. I don’t care how much waxing hurtstry slapping aftershave onto your legs after you have shaved them. Just try it. Then imagine how much it hurts if you did that on your face. If I was not awake before slapping the Jean Paul Gaultier on my face, I damn well am now. Jesus it’s painful.
Leaving the bathroom, I fish my robe from the back of the door, and start the scavenger hunt for clothes. Trousers and shoes are in the front room along with my bag, keys and wallet. Damn. I need underwear and socks. This entails quietly re-entering the bedroom and fishing around in the bedside cabinet without rousing W.
Crisis averted, I am back downstairs, and almost punching the air, having found an ironed shirt. Finding the shirt reclaims ten minutes. I might even have time for a cup of tea.
Damn damn damn. I have to sneak back upstairs, and tiptoe through the bedroom (in the dark) in search of a tie. I think I am being very quiet.
“What are you looking for”
Damn.
“It’s okayI found it”
I dissappear back down the stairs, and face Simpson who has taken up camp in the kitchen doorway. As I draw level with him he springs to his feet, tail held high, and trots enthusiastically inbetween my feet, staring at my face the entire time. I make a right turn into the lounge, and he heartbrokenly comes to a halt mid-kitchena few feet short of the cupboard that holds his food.
I busy myself packing the MacBook and it’s power adapter into my bag ready for the commute to work, and Simpson pretends that he just happens to be sat in the middle of the kitchen, cleaning his bum.
Every time I walk through the kitchen while gathering keys, wallet, bag, coat, scarf, and so on, Simpson springs to attention, tail held aloft like a Japanese flag, and attempts to accompany me to his food cupboard.
I finally give in. Miraculously, as soon as his food hits the bowl I am forgotten. I no longer exist in his universe. I have served my purpose, and no further friendship is going to be extended to me until the next mealtime. I am staff. I am allowed to leave for the day.
I pick up my bag, throw it over a shoulder, walk the length of the hallway, turn the key in the door, and walk from the house. I switch on the iPod and Alanis Morissette bursts forth in my ears. It’s a cold morning. Crunchy even. I start out on the ten minute walk to the railway station.