I Make No Excuses

Photo by Marianna on Pexels.com

I made the mistake yesterday whilst on the underground, of asking the Colonel what he was thinking about.

He looked instantly baffled and faintly like a bunny in the headlights. Once again I think that history was paying him a visit and he thought it was a trick question. It wasn’t. I was simply curious as to how and why someone could remain completely silent for the amount of time it took to get from Baker Street to Notting Hill Gate.

‘Really,’ I grinned, nodding encouragingly, ‘What were you really thinking about for soooo long? I don’t mind if it was about the lady with the big boobies over there,’ I whispered.

‘I hadn’t noticed’ he said sanctimoniously but with a twitch of a grin. I laughed.

‘In actual fact’, he said, (he never uses normal words like ‘actually’) ‘In actual fact, I was wondering about the advert up there’ and he pointed towards one of the advertisements set in a neat row above the tube maps in our carriage. It was a drab and dreary looking picture. He carried on solemnly, ‘It’s for a new business card which apparently is being voted rather highly by Which magazine’.

I paused, it now being my turn to feel baffled. ‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘That’s what you were thinking about?’ He nodded.

‘Crikey,’ I sighed. ‘No wonder you get so much more done in a day than I do. Shall I tell you what I was thinking?’ I carried on without waiting for an answer. ‘By the way, you do realise you didn’t say a word for at least four stops, and we had to change platforms?’ I confess this might have come out in a faintly accusatory tone.

He was starting to look a little bewildered; indeed, as though looking at the lady with the big boobies might have been a better option.

‘I too was looking at the adverts,’ I said importantly. ‘That one,’ I said and pointed to an advertisement containing a picture of a simple white bowl which was filled, indeed heaped rather artistically with peas.

‘However, I don’t know what mine is actually advertising because that isn’t important to me. But,’ I held up my finger to point out the crucial part was to follow, ‘But, I was wondering if I was to take one of the peas from the bottom of the pile, whether they would all have fallen out. And then,’ I started giggling oblivious to his bemused expression, ‘And then,’ I carried on, ‘I started thinking how funny it would be if all the peas fell out of the advert and onto the lady with the big boobies, down her cleavage even, and then into our carriage, until there were peas everywhere! Imagine it!’

By now I was laughing uproariously. My hands were clasped together in delight and I fear I was receiving a few quizzical looks from nearby strangers.

The Colonel peered closely at me whilst scrunching up his nose. He pushed up his glasses with one solitary finger and frowned. ‘Help me God,’ he muttered and started shaking his head. He then opened up the newspaper.

I sighed, my bubble momentarily burst. But seconds later, I rummaged in my handbag for two pencils and then opened up my own copy of The Standard. I silently handed one pencil to him and we glanced at each other, slowly both beginning to smirk and then, in an undignified scramble raced to find the crossword at the back of the newspaper to see who could finish it first.

Katie x

Do you think it matters if you’re like chalk and cheese?

How do you differ?