Tuft and Snook
Dear Diary. "Paul?" says Girlfriend. "Can you come here for a minute?"
I go find Girlfriend. She's sitting in the spare bedroom, listening to the radio and playing Candy Crush on her phone. It's almost afternoon but she's still in her pyjamas.
"Can you go to the market and buy some bread?" she says.
"Why can't you go?" I say.
"I can't go, I'm working," she says.
"You're not working. You're sitting listening to the radio and playing Candy Crush on your phone."
She tuts. "I don't have any work right now. But my boss could call at any minute."
So I go to the market, which is thankfully only a two minute walk from my house. There's an old woman waiting at the traffic light. She hasn't pressed the button that changes the lights. How long has she been waiting there for? All day? I press the button. The traffic lights change instantly. I cross the road and enter the market. It's full of old people. There's more white hair than at a Cliff Richard concert.
I go to the bread stand. There's a ticket machine but the tickets are stuck inside. So I open the machine and pull the tickets out.
"You don't need a ticket, no one here has one," says the woman next to me.
Ok, I guess no ticket then.
It's almost my turn to be served when an old woman comes and takes a ticket from the ticket machine.
The baker says, "Who's next?"
The old woman thrusts the ticket in the air and says "ME."
She gets served before me.
I buy the bread. I walk back home. In the lift back up to my apartment, I look in the lift mirror and I notice my t-shirt has a stain and my nose has a bogey in it. I pull the bogey out and wipe it on my trousers.
I arrive home. "I got the bread," I say to Girlfriend.
"Paul, just to let you know, the council are charging us €140 for the bins this year," says Girlfriend.
I have a look at my online bank statement and sure enough, the council has taken €140 out of our joint account. Other recent debits, all in the past four days, are:
- €620 to my mother-in-law for rent
- €560 for 1-year-old's nursery
- €121 for 6-year-old's school lunch
- €38 for 6-year-old's theatre class
- €30 for 6-year-old's Judo class
- €29 for 6-year-old's arts and craft class
"Jesus Christ," I say, rubbing my head. "On Saturday alone we spent €170. And we used the card eleven times??"
I change my t-shirt for a clean t-shirt from my wardrobe. But this t-shirt isn't clean either. It has a white stain, like toothpaste.
At 3 pm Girlfriend picks up 1-year-old from nursery. I take 1-year-old for a walk. 1-year-old and I are sitting on a bench when two young blonde women come over.
"Do you believe strongly in God?" one of them says in an American accent.
"Not really," I say. "I think you've got the wrong person."
"Well we're having a dinner this evening for families, and it'd be great if you could join us. There'll be food, games, and bible readings." She hands me a card. It says SEARCHING FOR CHRIST and has an address and phone number. "What's your name?" she asks.
"I'm Paul. What are your names?"
"I'm Sister Tuft and this is Sister Snook."
"Are those your real names?" I ask, incredulously.
"They're our last names," she says.
Tuft and Snook? Sounds like a squirrel detective agency.
"Well, we hope you can come tonight," she says.
"You know what? I might just come," I say. I put the card in my pocket.
When I get home, I tell Girlfriend about the encounter. "Can we go?" I say. "It'll be interesting. And there'll be free food."
"It sounds like a cult," says Girlfriend.
"A cult with blonde teenage American girls," I say. "Sounds like my kind of cult."
"There's no way we're going," she says.
In the end we don't go, unfortunately. In the evening I do a Bodycombat class, then I go home, eat pizza with the kids, and put the kids to bed.
I spend the rest of the evening updating my database of people I know. I have a bad memory and so I created a database containing everyone in my life. I have their names, dates of birth, and notes about them.
"What's that name of your gay colleague?" I say to Girlfriend.
"Why?" she says.
"I want to put him in my database."
She tuts at me, for the second time today. "You're like a stalker," she says.
"I don't know. I think it's a really good idea, keeping notes about people. That way, ten years from now, I'll be able to say, 'Hey, it's you, Mike! I met you ten years ago, remember? You said you were thinking of going to Asia? Did you ever go?' And they'll be like, 'Whoa, how does he remember that?' And it'll be because of my database."
Girlfriend's not listening. She's watching TV.
By the way, if you're reading this and you know me, then there's a good chance you're in my database.
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