Nine Of Them Are Women!
Here it is, I’m done with the painful and somewhat sordid world of married life and returning to the more salubrious atmosphere of criminality. I’m probably going to steer clear of matters of life and death, and chill out with some fraud, bit of home theft, climb in through a window, scoop up the boodle, and walk away, whistling, having a carefree manner, before disappearing off the face of the earth for two weeks…or, I could just make it up with my wife.
Jenny didn’t sleep well last night, having dreams of me running her smalls through the washing machine. I never go near the bloody thing, or the spin-dryer, since that one time. It was a sequin dress, what do I know.
That night she sat in the armchair, her mind clouded over with pain, head bowed, holding a hanky poised, and it went downhill from there, a kind of spiritual loss.
I explained that she had done everything she could to save it, having snatched the dress from the dryer, jumped into the Porsche, and buried her foot on the accelerator. We were an emergency vehicle on the road without lights or siren, which is hard to explain to the drivers of oncoming cars. Her arms beat rhythmically, like window wipers, telling people to clear the way. The police car pulled up too late; we were sitting inside a battered pile of junk against the hedge. Then it rained. There was no one left to blame but God, or Whirlpool.
Here’s the thing, I didn’t curse, rage, punch the air, or fall to my knees.
I walked home behind Jenny; she was rain soaked, carry the sequin damaged dress in her right hand, dragging.
So, look, there’s something to be said for criminality. I see myself as a small-time thief, specializing in relieving householders of their home entertainment, video, coffee machines.
But put my wife’s sequin dress in the spin-dryer under penalty of a malicious wounding, solitary confinement, and make my own breakfast.
How do you plead?
Judge, lock me up. Forget the jury, nine of them are women.
