Cornets and Frivolity

Today The Other cornet arrives.

Yes, he bought it at nine twenty on Wednesday evening. I returned from rehearsals for Pajama Game to find a flushed and highly emotive husband crouched over a hot laptop, a glass of wine by his side (by no means the first).

‘Look, Pop!’ he said, and proceeded to tell me, in great detail, the ins and outs of this particular purchase. I’m afraid my interest lagged a little, as he’d told me most of it several times that day.

But at least yesterday I managed to sell the cornet that wouldn’t sell on ebay. Oh, the power of forums. (What’s the plural of forum? Forae? It doesn’t sound quite right.) Anyway, I advertised this cornet that no one wanted and blow me down, a couple from Porthleven came at lunchtime and bought it for their grandson. As he’s five I felt this was a bit optimistic, but never mind. It needed to go.

So when this new one arrives Himself will have a mere three cornets rather than four, which is an improvement of a kind I suppose.

Unfortunately one of the lenses fell out of his only pair of distance glasses yesterday so most of the profits have been spent on buying two pairs of glasses. He rather foolishly let slip that the optician had told him he should be wearing glasses all the time, so I insisted that he had a spare pair. So two pairs (with OAP discount) was £50, we both put £20 in the Frivolity Box and – er – the rest will go on housekeeping.

No comment.

I should explain about the Frivolity Box. This is a heart shaped tin that once held something smelly I was given for Christmas. A few years ago, my dear Sister In Law came to stay, and left some money for us to go out to lunch after she’d gone. Rather than put it in the housekeeping, where it would be swallowed up on toilet paper and soap, we put it aside and saved it for when we felt like a treat.

So now we try and have something in the tin for if we want a takeaway or go out for a meal. The tin’s got down to about three quid which doesn’t allow a lot of frivolous behaviour, so now it’s bulging with nearly fifty quid which means we can do something for my birthday.

In the meantime, Himself said cheerfully, “Well, I can’t buy any more cornets, Pop. I’ve run out of money.”

Since when has that ever stopped him?