Under the same roof!!!!!!!

Now that I had chosen it, perfectly sober and in cold blood, I hadn’t the luxury of complaining about it anymore. It was all perfectly under control I was telling myself even while I stared at the extra toothbrush, placed with such admirable nonchalance on the bathroom basin. It was like this. A fortnight ago I had, in a fit of the amorous kind, coaxed my boyfriend to move in with me. Next morning after having snapped out of the haze though I had stepped on my foot a couple of dozen times, banged my head against the wall and finally convinced myself that it was all a bad dream which would never translate into reality. And sure enough, weeks passed by without the wonderful man once mentioning the proposition. So complete was his lack of memory that I almost began falling in love with him.

But then reality struck.

Last night, at a quarter past two the big boy turned up with three suitcases and a cat! I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sight.

Here is what is troublesome about the situation. My home is my abode, NO ONE….and I mean NO ONE lives under the same roof as me. No man, no woman and certainly no furry animal. MY bathroom, MY tub, MY shower, MY sink, kitchen, knives, bowls, pillows…everything was determinedly MINE. Absolutely NOTHING is allowed to come between them and me.

But here I was cut off from half of my absolute rights by a man chomping away at MY cornflakes on MY dining table. Milk dripping off the corners of his mouth. Really, what did I see in him? There…there now he has propped his ugly socks clad feet on the perfectly upholstered cover of my favourite chair. I clear my throat. And yet the man shows no sign of pulling the offensive limb back. I clear my throat again. Nothing! With practised ease he protrudes his hand and grabs at this morning’s paper…MY papers. Mouth full with fruit loops he is shaking his fist and angrily expressing his disgust at foreign invasion in the Middle East. I roll my eyes. I can see the writing on the wall. This summer is going to be a long series of badly squeezed toothpaste tubes and dirty underwear strewn in the drawing room. I had to gather my arsenals and shoo of the intruder. And I had to do it NOW.

I was sharpening my guts with words of encouragement. “Capital possessions and love don’t mix too well girl”, I heard myself say resolutely, “Kick the chump out else you’ll bid your hard earned crib a ninny-handed goodbye…oh yeah”. For some reason my alter ego had transformed into a no-nonsense big mama kind.

So I stepped out in style. Hand tucked deep in my sweatshirt pockets.. eyes low and menacing. The man was nowhere. But it was too late…I wasn’t to be deterred now. “We need to talk”…I rumbled out the proverbial. I had hoped it would be quiet and painless, that I would catch him watching Yasmeen Bleath sunbathing or something and would therefore yell him out of the house. But, instead he emerged from the kitchen, aproned and all….spatula in hand… “Sure hon”…I heard the beast chime “say as soon as I am done with the Fillet Mignon?”… “Sure” I say trying to do an unflustered Garbo… “There is no hurry”.

Sure there isn’t, not for men who cook French food that is.

Moral of the story: Never underestimate the enemy, most of them read COSMOPOLITAN and have thus the key to your heart in their evil, conniving fists. So be afraid…be very very afraid