CAITLIN!! The bright side of death Post a comment Print Share via Facebook Twitter Google+ Caitlin Moran Published 1 minute ago ‘If you died, Pete, I’d throw away all the jam. I’d lose a spouse but gain a fridge shelf’ So. 00.51am. Bedroom. It’s late: the cat brought back a mouse that was still alive – but with its lower torso hanging off its spine, like a pair of baggy leggings. Having had a childhood that was more “real” than my husband’s, I was the one who put the mouse of out its misery – smashing its skull, using the mortar from the pestle and mortar. As you may imagine, the actual killing of the mouse was all over very quickly. “BISH BASH BOSH,” as Jamie Oliver would say, if he were pestling a fading mouse with high-quality John Lewis kitchen equipment. No – the mouse was no problem. What delayed our getting into bed is the subsequent argument over whether I was then right to put the mortar in the dishwasher on “70 Degree Intensive” to clean it. I argued that this was basically like the sterilising systems they use in hospitals. My husband kept saying, in a very small, upset voice, “But there will be mouse brains on all the glasses.” Anyway. We’re in bed now. The mortar’s been left on the patio, in a jug of Dettol. Pete is falling asleep. I feel myself begin to drift. These are my last thoughts of today. The last ones. Me: “Pete?” Pete: “Blkg.” Me: “Pete?” Pete: “Plrf.” Me: “You know what – if you did die before me, there is a considerable upside.” Pete: “Whurrr?” Me: “My thoughts have, obviously, strayed towards the mortality of all living things. Like you. Obviously it’s too upsetting to think of the bad side of you dying, and musicals have taught me that you gotta stay positive. So I started thinking about all the cool things about you dying quite soon, instead.” Pete: “How admirable of you.” Me: “Like jam.” Pete: “Jam?” Me: “You have an absolutely demented belief in your own ability to consume jam. There are seven pots in the fridge. No one else eats it. You’re essentially sleeping on a jam hoard, like a… fruit dragon.” Pete: “There aren’t seven pots of jam in the fridge. There are five – and two of marmalade.” Me: “I beg you not to make me humiliate you by asking you to explain the difference between jam – which is jam – and marmalade – which is orange jam.” Pete: “I – ” Me: “If you died, I would throw away all the jam. I would lose a spouse, yes – but I would gain a whole shelf in the fridge. And I would keep cans of Diet Coke in there – so I could always have cold Diet Coke. That would be amazing. At the moment, we keep it in the cupboard, and it’s always a bit warm. That makes me sad.” Pete, drily: “I had no idea how brutally I was curtailing your self-expression.” Me: “And that little shelfy/table thing in the hallway? If you were dead, it would be tidy at all times. Unlike now – when you herald your return to the house by emptying the contents of your trousers onto it, taking your trousers off, then making yourself a bowl of cereal.” Pete: “Where have I gone wrong here?” Me: “That shelf should be kept clear. It’s psychologically key. It’s the first thing people see when they come in the house. We should have something fresh there, like when you walk in a supermarket into all the fruit and flowers.” Pete: “You want us to model our house on a Tesco Metro?” Me: “I just want you not to dump £2.37 in change, a bunch of balled receipts and three sachets of ketchup into a psychologically key area. I think it’s making guests feel dolorous.” Pete: “Am I being extreme to find this all quite weird?” Me: “Blimey, Pete, be reasonable. I’m the one coping with the death of a spouse!” Pause. Pete: “Anything else?” Me: “Yeah. I’d down-scale to just three record players, buy a massive Buddha water feature for the garden – and also some wind chimes, which you have repeatedly vetoed with the line, ‘I’m not going to fill my outdoor airspace with tinkling hippy bollocks. They’re about as relaxing as having a load of morris men hanging off your tree.’” Pete, trying to join in: “And of course, with me cold and dead in the grave, you’d have double the wardrobe space – for all your suffragette rosettes and banners!” Me, unbelievably hurt: “No! You never touch your dead spouse’s wardrobe. That’s where you go to climb in, close the door, inhale the scent off their jackets, while weeping. That’s the Official Cryarium.” Pete: “So you don’t actually want me to die?” Me: “No! Not even when there’s no room in the fridge for fish, because of all the jam. I’m just… trying to consider the upside.”
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 07:21:28 +0000
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