The Curious Incident of Next-Door’s Dog Barking in the Night…

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One night last week I was snoozing soundly in bed, all curled up and cosy, when I heard our dog barking. My eyes flew open; he never barks during the night. Or if he does, I never hear him.

You know, by now, how my minds works: ohmygod, we’ve got burglars! There’s a fire! Somebody’s stealing my car! Or the burglar’s trapped in a fire while trying to find my keys so he can steal my car…

And then I realised something – it wasn’t our dog barking, it was next door’s. Phew! Not my problem, so I was safe to carry on snoozing.

Wrong! I heard the bounce of bed springs and the creak of floorboards creaking (I’m sure our walls were built from Cornflakes packets; you can hear everything going on next-door, and yes, I mean everything, even the noises when he’s umm… entertaining – boing, boing, bounce, bounce, squeal, bang, bash, ahhhh!)

But where was I? Oh yeah, awake. And the neighbour hadn’t just thrown a shoe at the dog or politely asked for quiet, but he’d actually got up, therefore, by my reasoning, something was wrong!

So I asked myself the question a completely neurotic person should never, ever ask herself at 4 o’clock in the morning: Should I be worried? I mean, what could possibly be wrong next-door that might affect us?

Image by jnyemb via Flickr

Was there a fire? Should we evacuate? A burglar? An outside prowler? A rampant sexual predator? Was he heading for us? Our home? Our Car? Our oil tank? Was there a gas leak? Were we about to explode in our beds? (Thank God I don’t sleep naked!!) Subsidence? Were our semi-detached houses slipping down a mine shaft? Was there a flood? Was somebody ill? Passed out on the floor? Should I ring an ambulance? The police? The Army? What about George, Mildred and Penny on the other side? Were they in trouble? Had the dog heard a commotion from their side? Did they need help? A blanket? A cup of tea? Was it an earthquake? A thunderstorm? Lightning? Should I unplug the computers? Were we at war? Being bombed? About to be gassed? Was it nuclear? Did I have time for a wee?

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

It was no good; I had to get up and investigate. There was no sign of natural disaster or mass destruction downstairs, but Eldest son was sitting on the sofa watching TV.

‘What you doing, Nigel? It’s like half-four in the morning!’

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ he replied. ‘It was too noisy.’

See! I knew something monumentally awful was going down. There’s nothing more rewarding for a neurotic than having her worst fears realised! Was it aliens landing their spaceship in the garden?

‘Nah, it was Youngest Brother. I can’t share a room with him anymore, Mum, he’s so bloody noisy when he farts and snores in his sleep. It’s a wonder they didn’t hear him next-door!’

Random Thought for the Day #3

Whoever writes the instructions on those home-hair-dye packets is a knob.

‘Leave dye  for 15 mins for a subtle shade, 25 mins for a darker tone or for high-grey coverage.’

Yeah, right. What it should say is: ‘Leave hair dye for 25 minutes if you really want all your grey bits to go flourescent red. Or orange. Or, with shades 13 and 37, a vivid shade of plum. The rest of your hair will, of course, dye to a bog-standard mouse-brown colour, but we find it highly amusing to watch you all walk down the street with stupid- coloured highlights!’
On a sixteen-year-old adolescent  it  says, energetic, creative, exotic:

Image by reutC via Flickr

 
On a forty-odd-year-old woman, it just says feather- fucking- duster: 

Image via Wikipedia

And there’s this other bit: ‘Rinse until the water runs clear.’ You could stand there ’til your arse turns blue, and the bloody water never runs clear! Two months’ later – when your roots have sprouted another inch of grey – the bastarding water still doesn’t run clear!

It should say: ‘Rinse until you lose the will to live.’
                             ‘Rinse until the neighbours send  in paramedics.’
                             ‘Rinse until your nipples drop off.’
                             ‘Rinse until you’ve used up all the water. In the street.’
                             ‘Rinse until your roots have turned grey. Again!’

Who writes this garbage? I bet it’s a man…

Random thought for the day…

Image by spikeyhelen via Flickr

Why are woolly tights so short in the leg?

I love wearing them with long skirts and boots at this time of year, but spend most of the day hiking the crotch back up from knee level! Why is that? I know I’ve got a huge arse, but my legs are tiny (in length, at least…) Why is there not enough wooly stuff to cover my bits?

More to the point, why is that hairy-legged bloke in the picture wearing tights? I mean Euww!

And it’s a nightmare when I’m out doing the shopping or walking the dog. You just can’t go rearranging yourself like that in public – if you wanna stay out of prison, that is… And by the time I’m nearing home, I’m waddling like I’ve had a nasty bout of diarrhoea in my nappy. It’s not nice, really.

And please don’t suggest I wear knickers over my tights. Tried that. They just end up wound around my knees as well!

Anyone else have this problem?