The Blue Lead is in the Car

I've become a cliche. This is a very bad thing for a writer. Cliches are to be avoided at all costs; whole days can be wasted looking at something and trying to describe it in a unique way.

This has snuck up on me when I wasn't looking. In the third year juniors I was rather fond of the Jenny Joseph poem about wearing purple and eating three pounds of sausages in one go and I vowed not to become a grumpy old lady who shouted at children on buses. I wasn't going to die my hair blue or pink, drag my worldly possessions round in a shopping trolley or have a poodle that produced white poos. But times change and the stereotypical old lady of my youth would be unique and quite funky now. That poem changed a whole generation of old folk; it gave them an alternative and now they're all wearing satin sandals and running their stick along public railings. You might have read the local news story about the pensioner who was caught by a speed camera doing 134 mph on his mobility scooter. Well, that is just what a good poem can lead to. What we need is a poem to help prevent fifty year old menopausal empty nesters becoming a cliche because although desperate to avoid it, it becomes a crushing inevitability.

There was no way I was going to become one of 'those' women, who fell apart when their children grew up. I had too much life to live; my own thoughts and feelings and the very idea of being bothered by a couple of teenagers not living at home anymore was ridiculous. And then my lady bits headed south, the hormones started to have a private party with rules I don't understand, my blood dumped it's iron like an anti-popeye and my bladder became allergic to trampolines making the resolution impossible to keep.  This is how on the morning after my son's A level results I came to be sitting on the edge of the bed doing the ugly sobbing thing.

The Long Suffering Husband looked at me sympathetically and said, "Well I'm not sure what to say. I don't know how to fix it."

"You.....*sob*...can't fix it.....*sob*......I'm broken and that's all there is to it....*sob*....I'm not a bloody car .... an oil change isn't going to do a sodding thing."

"I'm sorry. I was just trying to help."

"I know it's just that I'm so........*sob*....lonely and I'm useless. What's the point of me now? I can't even make a jelly without spilling it all over the fridge.....or make bunting without breaking the sewing machine."

"Can I just say?," he interrupted, "Did you break the sewing machine?"

"Well no but that's not the point. Other people can do things."

"How do you know? They might break the sewing machine or spill jelly in the fridge, you just don't know about it."

"Why would they do that?... *sob* None of the people I know are as useless as me. I ........*sob* ........just *sob* .......     can't believe ............ *huge choking sob*....... I think I might be premenstrual."

The ridiculousness of the situation suddenly struck me. Do you remember the last time you laughed and cried at the same time? For me, before then, it was when I was bored in the school summer holidays and watching a Shirley Temple film. I remember it because of the pain. Your body stabs you in the throat as it struggles to cope with conflicting emotions.

The LSH laughed and said, "Yeah, you think? The problem is you've been premenstrual for two years." He ducked quickly but big fat silent sad tears had taken over and I didn't even have the energy to throw something.

"It's why I've got no friends.....and now with both children gone I'll have nobody."

"You've got me," he said.

"Oh, but you're really annoying me. You keep saying things. You think you're being funny but ........"

"Sorry. You should say."

I protested that it would be cruel to tell him everytime he annoyed me, as, if I'm honest, it really isn't his fault.

He suggested a code word and then he would know I was irritated but it wouldn't feel like nagging.

I pulled myself together and started handing things to the LSH, for him to use his engineering skills to pack the car, filling every tiny space. (Warning: holiday blogs coming up). He kept wittering on about a blue dog lead, which was irritating me because I didn't think we had a blue dog lead. If only we'd agreed on a code word.

He burst back into the house, flushed with joy and said, "The blue lead is in the car."

That was it. Why have a word when you can have a phrase? 

It worked too. A six hour car drive can  give rise to many moments of irritation but if you respond to each one with, "the blue lead is in the car," the situation becomes something to have a chuckle over.