I can’t really get into the meat of this little entry before I tie up the loose ends of the previous one. Let me get it out of my system and onto my blog, and all will be well…
Binky Felstead failed us all.
Binky has decided that (against the advice of her fetching and wise mother, her fetching and shrill friends, and her fetching and fatalistic friends) she is going to entrust the skippering of the craft of life’s happiness to pencil-sharpened hair weasel, Alex Mytton. I am disgusted, my father is furious and Raccoon Eyed Account Manager is (in her contained and calm way) saddened by the grim inevitability of it all.
Binky: you have disappointed a nation.
That said, I overheard the most splendid conversation – or rather, monologue – on my way into the office today.
I was walking in front of (in turned out) two people, though at first I had assumed that it was one person, speaking on the `phone.
An American man was declaiming, and I have rushed to set his words down (and I wonder if it will be as funny in print – possibly not) as they were so deliciously pompous that I was almost squirming with delight as I heard them.
“You know how I was talking last night about sentimentality? How that’s a BIG part of me? How I’d seriously consider having your name and the names of the kids tattooed? Well, that’s why I bought the watch. I don’t look at it and think “Great watch!” – I look at it and think “We got here together. This is a marker of how hard we’ve worked, how far we’ve come. It’s not a watch. It’s a symbol of our union.”.”
This was – obviously – comedy gold, so I HAD to see who he was. So I slowed enough to let him overtake, at which point I noticed that he was not talking on the `phone, but was talking in person to his wife. They were both dressed in gym gear, trainers that gave them both a (much-needed) extra five inches or so of height; as they walked, she looked straight ahead, he turned his head to land his point as he went. It continued: she impassive and immune to all appeals, he determined to elevate his purchase of a (presumably expensive) watch to the level of art.
“What I’m saying is: its value is not what it cost me – that’s not what matters here. What’s important about this watch is that I bought something expensive at a time when I felt comfortable spending that on myself as part of “us”. This watch is going to be like…like…my fucking WEDDING RING now, because now I have so much more than when we got married. I have you, I have the kids…”
Just as I was beginning to stop thinking “Is this guy absolutely KIDDING?” and starting to think instead “Is this guy some sort of genius”, the most beautiful thing happened. Without a word, enabled by her springy, silent footwear, his wife simply peeled off, crossed the road and walked off down a side street. Not one word did she say – she just bailed. He didn’t notice.
“So, I guess, if you look at it as a watch, then sure it’s expensive, but what I’m saying is “This is my sentimentality poured into a watch”, it’s…WHERE THE FUCK DID SHE GO? KATHERINE?”
He stopped and looked wildly around. I passed him without telling him where she’d sought sanctuary: I thought she deserved at least that if that’s what she had to put up with night after night…
Eiljert Gabbles On 