Peas

15th February 2007

“Why are you sat there holding a tin of peas to your arm?” I said, not unreasonably, to The Trouble on entering the living room and discovering her in this bizarre pose.
She gave me her frostiest look, which is pretty frosty. Penguins toes have been known to drop off when subjected to lesser frosty looks. “You’ve no idea?”
I thought about it for a moment and said: “You’ve lost your marbles? You couldn’t find a tin of carrots? We’ve had the gas cut off and you’re warming them through with the heat of your body? Any of those?”
“Do you remember me asking you to bring a bag of frozen peas in with you from the corner shop?”
“Of course. But as I explained to you, Mr Ahmed had run out, had a run on frozen pea curry probably, so I got a tin of peas instead. The very tin that you are now holding to your arm, unless I’m very much mistaken my precious, marrowfat I believe.”
“And you think that will work, do you?”
“Work? What do you mean, work?”
“I knew you weren’t listening properly. The trouble with you is that you never do when I’m talking to you.” *
“I do.”
“No you don’t. If you’d been listening properly you’d know that I wanted the bag of frozen peas so I could hold it on my arm to reduce the swelling caused when I ruptured my bicep yesterday. In which case you wouldn’t, on discovering that Mr Ahmed was out of frozen peas, bought a tin of bloody peas instead!”
“Yes I would. That’s why I bought it.”
“What?” This said with utter disbelief. That made two of us who didn’t believe it but I had to say something.
“That’s why I got the tin of peas instead,” I said smoothly.
The Trouble shook her head as if to clear it. “I think I must be missing something here.”
“You are. You’re missing the knowledge that it is a well known fact that holding a tin of marrowfat peas to a ruptured bicep is a sure fire way of bringing the swelling down. Florence Nightingale swore by it.”
The Trouble was immediately apologetic. “And there was me, thinking I was being sarcastic,” she said sheepishly.
“Is it working?” I inquired solicitously. “Has it brought the swelling down any yet?”
The Trouble drew back her arm and threw the tin of peas at me. She yelped out loudly in distress, the act of throwing the tin obviously causing her great pain. I yelped out even more loudly as the tin caught me a nasty crack on the knee. In no time it became swollen. The Trouble suggested I should hold a tin of peas to it to bring down the swelling. She’s getting as bad as I am.

* A reminder for late comes to Razzamatazz. I call my wife The Trouble not because it is rhyming slang for wife, trouble and strife, wife, but because she is in the habit, especially when I have done something to anger her, of starting off a sentence with the words ‘The trouble with you is…..’

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