I've Been a Naughty Boy

I know I've been a naughty boy because my Beloved has told me so.

I was teaching a class in my computer lab when my mobile phone indicated I had a message (it plays a mournful "Flower of Scotland").  I have to keep my phone switched on in class just in case I get an urgent message about arranging a relief teacher.  (BTW, I say teaching, but seeing as it's the last day of term, we were just sitting and chatting, while some of our girls were strumming guitars)

It's bloody amazing what weird and wonderful illnesses strike down our teachers during a working day. 

Sick as a Dog

I've had colleagues go down with toothache, diarrhoea, earache, 'flu, piles, blindness (I kid you not.  The poor soul got an optical migraine which rendered her temporarily blind for a couple of hours) a sick dog (I don't mean the teacher WAS as sick as a dog, but he got an urgent message that his dog had taken poorly and he had to go home to comfort the poor thing. 

This last did trigger a response from one of our female colleagues ( I hope you're reading this Bay Tree) that she wouldn't be in the next day because she thought that her hamster had the sniffles.

Anyway I got a text message.

My initial reaction was fear.

My Beloved never phones me at work unless something catastrophic has happened, and as our lovely daughter in Scotland is now 5½ months pregnant a stab of sheer terror ripped through me when I saw who the message was from.

Muttering some sort of explanation to the class (Oh Shit!) I attempted to open the message.  My fingers were shaking so much I kept on hitting the wrong keys.

At last I got it open and read the text.

Ah.

At least it wasn't my daughter.  In fact it wasn't anything catastrophic, or at least I thought so.

Apparently the message was sent because my beloved (deliberate reduction from capitalisation here) was so shocked by what she had found that she JUST HAD to send me an urgent text.

What had she found?

my introduction to Whisky, age 5 months.

Was it the emergency bottle of whisky superglued to the garage ceiling?

No.

Was it the bill from Amazon for my latest ebook purchases? (She thinks I should just use the library and never buy books)

No.

Was it the collection of Playboys from the 1970s I had rescued from a second hand book store?

No.

Dear God In Heaven.  Had she stumbled across my blog on the Interwebthingy?

No.

It was apparently much, much worse than any of these scenarios.

Dear God, It's worse than I thought.  It's CHEESE

She had discovered an EMPTY PACKET OF CHEESE!!!

Going to bed last week, I had perused the contents of the fridge, looking for a sustaining snack (as most of us do) and had spotted a sliver of cheese left in the plastic wrapping of a ½kg block.  I had removed it from its lonely state, and had finished the remains in two bites.  I had thought I had stuffed the wrapper in my dressing gown pocket for later disposal, but it must have dropped out and fallen under the bed, where it had been discovered by my beloved this morning.

From her phrasing I understood that this crime was on a par with storing bottles of Nerve Gas or other Weapons of Mass Destruction under the bed, and that civilisation as we knew it was crumbling under the onslaught of these highly dangerous cheese packets.

I've learned my lesson.

I will grovel on my knees to my beloved this evening and utter heart felt moans of apology.

I will also make sure I dump the next lot of wrappers in the bin BEFORE I go to bed.

Of course I'm going to carry on having little snacks.  I may be a wimp, but I'm a bloke first.

Ah well, last hour of school, soon home to the delightful chill of the cryogenic greeting.

Isn't life just wonderful?