Our cat’s been behaving oddly. More oddly than normal. Odd for him, positively bizarre for any ordinary cat. He keeps jumping from side to side and rubbing furniture is a disturbingly aggressive way. He might be going mad. Madder.
‘What is that smell?’ T asked for the third time in an hour.
I still didn’t know.
We’d checked the baby. We’d looked for discarded fish and other monstrosities behind the sofas. Why, we’d even thrown away perfectly good cheese. We’d checked the baby again. Still the smell hung in the air like a slowly deflating party balloon.
‘It’s in the car now.’ She said, verging on hysteria, ‘What is that God-forsaken smell?’ Increasingly there was an inflection to her voice that could be classed as justification in a court of law.
And then it dawned on me. I knew what it was. It was T’s latest attempt at civilising me with aftershave. It was me. A couple of days ago, she’d caught me, in attempt to avoid wearing the infernal stuff, throwing it around the bathroom. Droplets evaporating off the stone tiles had smelt quite pleasant and deceived her into believing I was splashing it on. Foolishly, in the Do-You-Know-How-Much-That-Costs discussion afterwards, I agreed to start applying what I genuinely thought was a subtle amount.
I think I have made my point. And the ninety-mile car journey certainly helped. It doesn’t actually matter how expensive the cologne, I still manage to convert it into mustard gas. T has conceded defeat - I am un-scentable. Thank Heavens for that.
Comments