So just in case the dog doesn’t eat its own vomit I am, even as we speak, rehearsing my surprised face for when the mister gets home from cricket. ‘OMG, that’s disgusting, how long has that been there I’ve been so lost in my work I didn’t even hear it.’
It’s not a complete lie. I have been focussed on my work. But not so focussed that I missed the distinctive sound of an animal retching. Really, who would have pets? It’s not just the sick and the poo…
…so, I was interrupted mid-sentence because my phone rang and a lovely man asked ‘are you the owner of (cat’s name)’ because in the ten minutes the big cat was outside this morning he managed to lose his collar. He (the lovely man) insisted on bringing it over so obviously I had to go downstairs and throw a cloth over the vomit as if I had just that minute discovered it because he would be able to see the vomit from the front door.
Turns out it’s a good thing the dog didn’t eat its own vomit, because the vomit was mostly a peach stone. I don’t know why a dog would swallow a peach stone. I would never eat a peach stone. But then I would never eat my own vomit either. (I really mean that, I’m not just saying that for dramatic effect.)
Our neighbour is very lovely, and it was nice to meet him, although I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t our other neighbour over the back fence who sits in her backyard and has loud conversations on the phone about frangipanis. I did not think that there was all that much mileage in a conversation about frangipanis, but my goodness there are conversations galore. I think frangipanis must be one of those plants that used to be in fashion, then everyone except the people who used to live in this house ripped them out of their gardens, and now everyone is planting them again. I hope that happens to loquats too, because I love loquats but it’s pretty rare for someone to give you a bag of loquats of their tree these days.
After I had thrown a cloth over the dog’s vomit, I scanned my immediate surroundings in the way that you do that if you know someone is about to knock on your door when you really hadn’t planned for someone to be knocking on your door. I quickly cleaned up the remnants of the Floppy Adolescent’s afternoon of online gaming. Remnants included but were not limited to:
the foil left from last night’s garlic bread that came as part of the combo deal. Last night the garlic bread was deemed disgusting and no one wants that, but apparently all it needed was another twelve hours to sit on the bench;
an empty Sprite bottle (also came as part of the combo deal);
an empty punnet that used to be a full punnet of tomatoes (did not come as part of the combo deal).
Sometimes I wonder how it is that I am nearly fifty years and I have not yet achieved greatness. Other times I don’t.