Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

85

I'm not even going to try to dissect this. Why tie up both our mornings on a futile hunt for understanding, eh? I'm surely not going to be able to pick out anything — my searching fingers are now too callused, from running them along Margret's reasoning in an attempt to identify the scar where it's been imperfectly welded to reality. So, here we go, then.

I shuffle into the living room. It's first thing in the morning; I'm still in my night clothes, the children are circle-eyed and oval-mouthed — their faces distorted by the gravitational pull of the television screen — Margret is opening some post. I flop down on to the sofa.

Margret glances over at me. 'Have you got butter in your ear?' she asks, casually, before returning to her letters.

Briefly, I wonder if this is dream… too close to call, I decide — may as well just press on regardless.

I reach up and touch the side of my head. My finger returns with some shaving foam.

'It's shaving foam,' I reply.

Without looking up, Margret nods. 'Oh, right. It's so early — I didn't think you'd had time for a shave already.'

She thinks it's too early for me to have had a shave, everyone, yet easily late enough for me to have butter in my ear.

Move along, now. Nothing more to see here.