The Wrapping Of Christmas

It takes two years and a TV remote to know the dark side of a partner.

I decided to say a Christmas thank-you to my son the only way I knew how- with chocolate; apparently it’s not that great in China.

My husband, a man with more vouchers than Amazon brought so much cheap chocolate I had to send it in batches.

Or eat it myself …

Every day he came in from work looked at the pile of chocolate and asked…

“Have you sent that chocolate yet?”

Sometimes I looked at him like he was stupid, other times I just said “yes.”

Finally, my inertia got the better of him.

He waltzed in brandishing a chewed up roll of Christmas paper which needed a little “drying out”, a roll of Sellotape so old it took half an hour to find the end, and an empty box marked “adult’s only.”

Where he got them I haven’t a clue but I suspect like most things, in some dark corner at work where no one dares to linger…

Three buggered fingernails later I looked up from the sellotape, the end still stuck like super glue.

My ability to breathe life into a has-been, Sellotape is legendary, but this thing had been glued together since the Thatcher years.

“Shall I just buy a new one?” I said.

He peered from his precision paper cutting with a “hardly” look.

Recycling is his middle name, in fact if there was a recycling superhero he’d be it. He could recycle a used postage stamp if he put his mind to it…

His cupboards are full of leftover underpants, mismatched socks, and jackets that don’t fit, usually from his twice the size brother or even worse, his sister.

When I first discovered such talent I was mesmerized, amused. His talent for recycling was on a par with his packing. I’ve seen him pack an 80inch flat screen TV into the back of a Minnie as a surgeon puts back organs. Hell, I’ve seen him parcel up a a running machine for his home in Bangladesh and still have change from a tenner.

And how he does it is as much a mystery to me as getting a souffle to rise.

I stared at my hubby folding paper around the ‘adult” box like he was making an origami H bomb.

It was going to be an all-night job.

My hubby likes to make a meal of things. What is a mundane task for me is truly saving the world for him.

When he peels potatoes, which usually involves a critical inspection of my knives, he expects a round of applause for the symmetry…and don’t get me started on his foreplay.

Finally after an argument about my “flamboyant use of sellotape,” we headed for the post office.

A voluptuous elderly woman admired hubby’s handwork.

“Get a load of this,” she gestured to her comrade.

Her comrade polishing her glasses peered at the address while the voluptuous one praised my hubby for the excellent “taping of the corners”.

“That’s precision that is,” she said “impenetrable”.

Hubby beamed with pride.

“I have wrapped up more presents than Santa himself,” she said “but never anything as, well…perfect,” she eyed Hubby.

“You can wrap my parcel any day.”

She winked.

He gave her his best shy face.

“Pity,” said the comrade.

“What?” I said.

“Well it's way too heavy for China,” Said the comrade.

“Even by ship?” said The voluptuous one.

The comrade jiggled the box in her hands and blew through her lips.

Chocolate to China it seems is a lot harder to send than a running machine to Bangladesh.

She placed it on the counter like it was about to explode.

“It’ll never make it on a ship, way too suspicious.”

She threw me a look. “They’ll have the squat team after it in Peking.”

“Squat team, in Peking?” Snapped the voluptuous one “Who are you the next Micheal Palin?’

“You need to make it into two .”

“Two?” Snapped the Voluptuous one.

“Make that three.”

“Three?” Shrieked the voluptuous one.

“Well if you want to get it there before Christmas.”

I looked at my Hubby silent but thoughtful. You can learn a lot from a decade of bed-sharing one being when to say nothing and the other being when not to gloat.

His eyes scanned the back of the office stopping at the recycle bin…

The voluptuous one followed his gaze.

“Are those for recycling?” he said.

The voluptuous one with a larger than life smile picked a selection of scruffy padded envelopes that had, by looks of things, been around the world at least twice.

“I do like a man that recycles”, she smirked.

The comrade tutted.

My hubby with an arm full of used envelopes headed out the door, looked at the rain lashing down, and turned to me.

“There's still plenty of that sellotape isn’t there?”

I said nothing.

True love is knowing when it’s best to feign deafness.

Out Now

Three Angry Women And A Baby

https://books2read.com/u/bwdZG9