All in a day’s work
I turned up at the address with the boiler I was delivering and a man who looked like he was in his late 60s answered the door. He had bright orange lips that glistened and his mouth was hurrying to get rid of the last remnants of whatever he’d been eating. I asked him where he would like me to leave his boiler; whereon he pointed to a door along the hallway and said, “in there, but are you squeamish?”I’m not particularly squeamish but I was reluctant to commit myself before knowing exactly what I would be encountering behind that door. Before the look of uncertainty had left my face he went on to explain that his wife had recently died and was in the room where he wanted me to put the boiler. Quite a few possible scenarios darted through my mind in the short interval before he revealed that it was merely his wife’s ashes that were residing in the room.
Now if he hadn’t said anything about his late wife being in that room I would have been in and back out again without noticing a thing, other than how untidy the room was. But, knowing she was in there, obviously the first thing I did on entering was to scour the room for her. Even then it took longer than I would have expected to find her. It turned out that she was on a coffee table in a little wooden box, blending in with all the other clutter. I don’t even think I would have realised that it was her had there not been some sort of bereavement card propped against her box.
I put the boiler down in one of the few spaces in the room where it would fit and then went into the kitchen, where I put the delivery note down on the worktop next to the plate covered in baked bean residue, which explained the orange lips, and asked the man to sign it. I couldn’t help noticing how cheerful the man’s demeanour was for someone who had very recently lost his wife. I speculated to myself that perhaps the man’s wife disapproved of baked beans while he rather liked them and his new found freedom to indulge himself more than compensated for his loss.
Just as an incidental observation regarding my squeamishness; I found the remains of the man’s lunch on that sauce smeared plate a lot more off putting than those of his wife.
Comments (35)
Harbaaaaaaaaal
I would have asked, "How recently?" though, just in case she'd been decomposing in there for a week.
MiMi can’t sleep.....
Harbal,
I could handle ashes. Even if she were laid out for a wake, I could work around her.
If she were in there dead for weeks, I couldn't handle it
MiMi did finally get some sleep before waking up again to Skype with my Arty, my usual morning ritual
Anyway, MiMi just had the yummiest chow mein with my son for brekkie. Gonna drop him off at college after this and hope he’d do well in his Chemistry test later
Well, when it comes to Chemistry, MiMi and her Arty passed with flying colours!
He sounds delicious. Did you tell him to join CS or do you think he's already being snapped up?
Oh and this made me remember back to the seventys when I was widowed. My late husband hated chicken and I loved it but only ate it when we went out, never cooked it. I think he was dead about 3 months when it suddenly dawned on me in the grocery store that I could buy as much chicken as I wanted much to my chargrin.
In the United States, they are referred to as 'water heaters' and come in electric or gas versions. A whole house unit could be as large as 50 gallons. In the last 15 years (or so) smaller 'on demand' units that heat water only as needed have replaced the less efficient upright tank units.
I have a similar 30 gallon unit outside, housed in a metal shed.
And at home we were exposed to American series/sitcoms/movies
Like I'd let my landlords pick me a new geezer.