It's been a hard week.

Jo is going through the long, drawn-out and humiliating process of having her job taken off her. Then, on Saturday, her step-granddad died after a short illness.

There has been little to smile about, really.

Thankfully, Mother Nature / Fate and the God-thing conspired to bring a smile to my face this morning, in that 'I don't know whether to laugh or cry'-mode so beloved of the arbiters of our doom and joy.

Once I'd stopped gagging, I chose to laugh.

As you know, I'm fond of a snack.

Sugar is my smackcrackocaine.

Most of the time, I'm strong enough to ignore its incessant call.

But this week, I have been weak.

It's been a weak week.

On Sunday afternoon, feeling frazzled and a bit woe-is-me, I crept over to the local Spar while my wife and daughter were out the house and bought myself a bag of Butterkist and a large packet of Minstrels.

You get both of those bad boys in your mouth at the same time and the whole rest of the universe does not matter.

Crunchy chocolate.

Actually, the Butterkist isn't anywhere near as good as Cinema popcorn. You know, the kind that tastes exactly the same whether or not you order it sweet or salty.

I have a theory as to why that is the case, a theory you can visualise as a Venn Diagram. The 'Salty' set intersects with the boys of certain age who work in cinemas whilst carrying the usual boy angst traumas of a world of resentment on their shoulders and a powerhose full of life syrup that's in need of constant expulsion.

Butterkist had to do.

My wife, who has had a hard week, didn't need to know about my snack relapse.

I had a few heavenly, surreptitious handfuls on the walk home and then locked my stash in the footwell of my car.

Let's rewind to the previous day.

I'd been to the local tip to dispose of Ava's old mattress.

There were also some bags of garden refuse that had been lurking at the back of the garden for the last couple of months.

The council had refused to take them.

Apparently there were too many branches in our garden waste.

So, the bags had sat there mouldering and supporting their own ecosystem since the end of last summer.

A metropolis of worms, slugs, beetles, funny little white things that could be the start of an alien invasion, all did their best to scatter when I moved the bags.

Gross they were.

Yack!

I hate bugs.

Especially slimy bugs.

I gave the bags a cursory shake before I put them in the boot of my Peugeout [and what a stupid word that is.]

I had just pulled up by the skips when my phone started ringing.

It was Jo.

I needed to get back home immediately because news had come through from the hospital that her [step] granddad was on the verge of death and she didn't want to have to take Ava to a ward full of nearly corpses.

So, I got back as quickly as I could.

I didn't have time to ditch the bags.

They ended up staying in my car for a couple of days while I got my show out the way and we all got on with some difficult business.

Anyway.

I finally managed to get the bags to the tip yesterday afternoon.

Some of the inhabitants had roamed around my boot as if it were a holiday camp.

There were slimy, silvery trails all over the place.

It was as if Rebecca Loos had been in there.

But there were no obvious bugs.

Phew.

On the way home I remembered the popcorn I had stashed in the footwell.

I nearly wet myself with glee.

I even reached over while driving to grab a handful. It's okay, though, I was still in full control.

I had my eyes on the road in front all the way.

So I crammed a massive handful of popcorn into my maw without looking.

And there was something large and squishy in it.

Something I'd bitten through.

Something that, despite having been bitten in half, still had the capacity to wriggle like hell.

To my credit, I didn't swerve or anything, as I spat the slugcorn all over my dashboard.

I still can't get the taste out of my mouth.







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