It's a shame when real life slapstick goes to waste. This is the curse of being a single man living alone. If I had kids or a flatmate then the numerous ridiculous scrapes I get myself in would entertain and amuse. But if a comedian trips over a fallen tree in a forest and no-one is around to see him fall, does he raise a laugh?
Tonight I had made myself chicken pasta for my dinner (or more accurately Ian Marks and Ian Spencers had done it and I had just heated it up in my microwave). I was also having a bowl of expensive M&S fruit for pudding, which I had put in a bowl, because I am too classy just to eat it out of the carton.
So I was walking upstairs to my TV room to eat it there with both my hands full when I tripped on one of the three stairs up to the landing and lost my footing. Was pasta and fruit going to go everywhere? Luckily I managed to hold on to the main course, but mango, papaya and passion fruit leapt out of its bowl in a very comedic fashion and went all over my wood flooring. I lay on the steps with the two bowls still in my hands, but a splash of exotic fruits extending out in front of me. If anyone had seen that happen they would most certainly have laughed, but as it was only me I was annoyed that I had lost my pudding (the floor was not filthy, but I wasn't going to pick up the sticky mixture of fruit and whatever else might have been lurking), yet strangely relieved and pleased that I had managed to save my main course. Especially given that I had another fruit salad in the fridge, but no more microwaveable meals. So it could have been worse.
I left the devastation behind me for the moment as I didn't want my pasta to go cold, but went to tidy things up later. I couldn't just leave rotting fruit on the floor. My cleaner has already had to cope with
vinegar in the kitchen and
blood in my office. If she ended up having to clear up papaya in the hall she might start to think that she was participating in some strange real life version of Cluedo.
So I cleaned it up later. Not totally efficiently. The slight whiff of a down market cocktail lounge hangs in the air.
But my only regret is that no-one was there to see the slapstick. Nothing annoys a comedian more than a wasted joke.
