The Diary of a Nobody
Being the modern day record of Charles
Pooter VI -
direct descendant of the 19th Century original
Friday, April 24, 2009
I painted some fish and seaweed motifs in the bath in a nice terracotta colour. I thought they looked great. Unfortunately, Carrie didn’t, and we had a few cross words. She said I ought to have asked her first, and she’d never heard of anyone painting stencils IN a bath. I replied “It‘s merely a matter of taste”.We didn’t argue any further because someone shouted up the stairs “May I come in?” It was only Cummings, who said “The front door was on the latch, and I couldn’t seem to raise anyone with the bell”. He suggested trying out “My Word Coach” – his new Nintendo game. Just for the laugh I said “And I bet you’ll end up a real slow Coach in that department”. He said “Oh, ha ha ha” and sounded a bit shirty, I thought. He said he couldn’t hang around – he’d only popped in to drop off a copy of Top Gear which he’d finished with.
Another knock at the door: this time, it was Gowing. He said he was sorry for always coming over, and sometime soon we should get across to his place. I said “Something a bit weird’s just struck me”. “What’s the betting it’s really funny?” said Cummings. “It is actually” I said. “Even you will get it. It’s about the two of you. Wait for it. Doesn’t it seem odd that Gowing’s always coming, and Cummings is always going?” Carrie (who’d obviously forgotten all about the stencils in the bath) went into hysterics, and I doubled up in my chair til it literally cracked beneath me. Thinking about it, I’m sure it’s one of the best gags I’ve ever made.
But imagine my surprise: Cummings and Gowing said nothing at all and looked utterly stony faced. There was a bit of an uncomfortable silence. Cummings pulled out his mobile, looked at a message, put it away and said “You know what? I think I’ll be off. To tell you the truth, I don’t think your jokes are particularly funny”. Gowing said he liked a bit of banter, but this was plain silly, and it’s not like he hadn’t had people take the mick out of his name before. Cummings said if anyone else had said it, he’d have ignored them completely. It was all a bit of a downer: we could have had a good time, but didn’t. Then again, it was slightly fortunate. We didn’t have much in the fridge in the way of dips or anything.
©MMIX KONSIGNIA. All rights reserved.
Why shouldn’t
I publish
my diary?
I often see memoirs by people I’ve never even heard of and I don’t see why my diary should be any less interesting, just because I’m not a ‘celebrity’. I only wish I’d started it when I was younger.
Charles Pooter
The Laurels, 32 Elmside,
Barleycorn Mead, Harrow on the Hill.
charles@charlespooter.com
Archives
XML Site Feed
(whatever one of those is)
Powered by Blogger