Shoosh!

 Potter lay on the couch in the study. He was exhausted. The One in a Skirt was due home sometime this afternoon. He'd vacuumed, made the bed, put the dishes in the dishwasher and put it through a cycle, hung out the washing and cleaned his piss droppings off the floor just below the toilet. He looked at his tablet. Trent had left the only comment on his latest post One Off Additions.

"Chi va piano va sano e va lontano, e arriva in ritardo. Old Italian saying."

Potter didn't speak Italian, so he missed the joke at the end.

"It might as well be in bloody Greek!" he thought.

He was about to write what he considered a very humerous reply when another comment from Trent appeared.

"The Presbyterian church is opening a church shop to give the Catholics a run for their money. We're looking for extra shop assistants."

Potter exclaimed out loud, "Shoosh!"

The thought took him back to the 1960s when he was at Palmerston North Presbyterian Boys' School. He was still proud that he'd made it into 3A1, the top streamed class. He smiled when he remembered that Terry had only made 3A2 and, as far as he could remember, Trent was in 3B1. There was also a 3B2. The boys in the A classes referred to students in the B classes as 'bottom feeders'.

"Hey, that's a good line. I must
use it sometime!"

Potter remembered how he had taken all the graven images he could find in the school chapel and had sold them off to other students. This wicked practice had taken off with other kids, to the extent that it was almost impossible to find a graven image in a Prebyterian church these days.

Then a comment appeared from that Danish guy.

"Ingen kommer i problemer uden hans egen hjælp. Old Danish saying."

Potter thought how he was sick of old sayings and, at that moment, he heard a car coming up their drive. It was The One in a Skirt!

Potter jumped up and put his tablet down. His eyes did a quick check around the study and he headed for the kitchen.

"Must look busy!" he thought. He took out some vegetables and a couple of pots and put them on the bench. He pretended to be preoccupied, like he was planning dinner. The door opened.

"Hi darling." he said.

The One in a Skirt replied, "Why haven't those gardening tools been put away? You haven't taken the junk mail out of the letterbox!"

Potter thought, "Shoosh!" but he said, "Sorry dear but I've been very busy."

Before he could continue to whine on, Betty said, "I hope you haven't dribbled around the toilet again."

"No, everything's clean. In fact, I was just heading out to put those tools away. The junk mail must have just arrived."

"Pull the other one, Buddy Boy." Betty replied.

"I've got a parsnip and lettuce pie planned for dinner and I thought we could open a bottle of Chardon."

"Lettuce in a pie?"

Potter thought quickly. "No, I meant let us add something of your choice."

"Well, you know I don't like parsnip, so we'll use spinach and feta."

"Yes, that's what I meant."

"I am impressed that you're passing up beer for a Chardon though." said Betty.

Potter smiled. "When I was young we used to call it Hard On."

"Yes, well, if you're going to talk like that, we might as well move down to Wainuiomata." Potter knew that Betty was not impressed and that it was probably time for him to shut up and work out how the hell to make spinach and feta pie. He wondered if you were supposed to chill sparkling white wine. He remembered having a chilled red at a restaurant once in Wellington. Evidently, some wine snob had complained and the restaurant stopped chilling reds. It had tasted okay to Potter.

Potter thought, "If I could knock back a beer right now, it wouldn't even touch the sides! Shoosh!"