Friday , March 29 2024

In The Henhouse Again

Mrs Headlander has left me… It’s official! She’s packed a bag and has scarpered off to another country to ‘have a good time’ she says. Normally I’d be pretty devastated but I’m coping quite well… particularly as I know that she’ll be back on Monday as she’s only run away to attend a friend’s hen night.

As they’re all getting on a bit I assumed that the girls attending would be off to some nice luxurious spa for a weekend of pampering, massages and manicures but no – they’re going to have an alcohol fuelled rave up so I ‘m told. Also, when I say Hen night… what I really mean is Hen weekend. Mrs H left yesterday on the train with a posse of other like minded clucking women all armed with pink t-shirts displaying offensive (to men) logos, white cowboy hats & boots, fairy wings and my credit card! They’re off to sunnier climes to party as hard as they can for three days.

Whilst she who must be obeyed is away ‘having a good time’, it has been decreed that her long-suffering martyr of a husband (err… that’s me by the way in case you didn’t recognise it) is not allowed to enjoy himself… I’ve been left a list of chores as long as an orang-utan�s arm. She wants a new curtain pole putting up in the bedroom; I’m to defrost the freezer, paint the bathroom and the hallway, put up coat hooks and iron all her work clothes for next week. She probably has a point though… the last time she went away for a weekend I spent the whole time drinking heavily in the Pint and Fight and spent 2 days afterwards calling God on the great white telephone. Oh yes and there was the small (but nevertheless contentious to her) point that I had spent much more money during the time of her trip than she had! I think that she thinks that if she keeps me busy I’ll have no time to get tanked up! We shall see…

Even though I won’t see her over the weekend I’ll sure as hell hear from her… she is very effective at nagging from a distance as well as face to face (I think the secret of this is passed down from mother to daughter at the age of about sixteen). During the day I’ll get frequent calls asking for progress reports on each of the chores and while she’s there she’ll probably add some new ones to the list. Not only that, but after a few drinks she’ll start calling me up even more frequently to ask me “how am I doing?” and then she will pass the phone around her drunken friends insisting that I should speak to them. So I’ve decided that this weekend, during the evenings… and probably all day Saturday I shall turn off the phone… as last time she was away I received these drunken phone calls on a 1/2 hourly basis from about 8pm onwards. When I had finally had enough of speaking to all her drunken mates and any passing stranger that happened by I unplugged the telephone from the wall socket in the bedroom. It was three in the bloody morning. After this the calls started coming to my mobile instead so at some time after half past three I turned that off as well! Throughout the night I could hear the downstairs extension ringing regularly but I ignored it as I needed my beauty sleep. Of course she doesn’t understand to this day why I did this.

I don’t know if the other women of the hen party will do this (perhaps they don’t have to call their men every few minutes as they all get to speak to me) or it’s just my missus that rings all the time. Of course I know that men also ring home when they are away on events… but that’s not to nag their partner but to ‘check in’ to reassure their partner – it would be more that the guy’s life is worth not to call regularly… in other words men who are apart from their partners phone them up to get nagged!

When the current Mrs H arrives back home on Monday I have been ordered to meet her at the station and take her immediately to the pub so that she can drink several vodkas to help stop the inevitable shaking. I think I’ll turn up wearing a bright blue t-shirt bearing the logo ‘welcome home… now what’s for tea?‘ underneath a photo of the ultimate chauvinist… Mr Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown. Then we’ll go to the pub and I’ll ring her on her mobile every time she goes off to the loo to ‘see how she’s doing’ and ask random people in the pub to speak to her for a chat! She’ll love it I�m sure!

Cheers!

Headlander


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