You know when they say, 'truth is stranger than fiction'...........?
Last night was probably one of the weirdest experiences of my entire life. 'He Who Pays the Mortgage' was out and about, so the 'Tiny Hands' and I got on with dinner. Whilst they were rowing over exactly which of them should set the table, I heard a knock at the front door. Boy child was duly sent to answer it. As there was no one there, we assumed kids were just messing about and sat down to dinner. With the chatter that comes with your average family meal I thought I heard the door go a couple of times but simply ignored it.
This may have been my downfall.
Clearing away we (I) decided that we should all get together in the living room, never mind all the electronic rubbish, and do a jigsaw puzzle. Halfway through the death mask of Tutankhamen a knock came from the front door. I answered it. Nobody there.
'Strange,' I said.
'Probably the curse of Tutankhamen,' said Girl child in a brave attempt to wind up her brother.
As we settled down again a strange scuffling came from around the door area. Now this is when you regret filling your children's head's full of nonsense, because we all leapt onto the sofa and freaked out. I opened the curtains but couldn't see anything between my bay trees, the kids were standing on a two seater sofa screaming,
'What is it! We are going to die, Arggggggghhhhhh!!!!'
And then between the pots I saw black booted feet waggling about. Wrenching open the front door I discovered an old woman on her knees trying to shove something in a black plastic bin bag through the letter box.
I shouted , 'What are you doing ?'
From her knees the woman looked up and smiled and said, 'I have your curtains.'
Now, correct me if I'm wrong but there is a certain amount of sinister intent in that statement,which made me go,
'Arggghhhh!!!!'
The woman unfolded herself from my doorstep to nearly six foot tall, wearing a headscarf, glasses and a pinny. At that point the 'Tiny Hands ' looked round the door, screamed and scarpered upstairs, leaving me stood in the hallway with a gigantic, stick thin pensioner, waving a bin liner at me on my doorstep.
'You're all very excitable aren't you?' she said pleasantly.
Unable to reach for anything heavy I coward slightly and said, 'What the hell are you doing?'
'I've brought your curtains.' she replied.
And then, I, for some unexplained, bizarre reason said, (And I shit you not!) 'I don't need curtains I watch Delia Smith!.................'
Resembling a Preying Mantis in a pinny, she looked down at me curiously and said,
'But you ordered them.'
'From who?' I yelled.
In the embarrassed silence we stared at each other, then at the binbag, then back at each other.
( Or in my mind, I stared at the woman who was going to take over my house and make us her slaves, with a pair of net curtains.)
With the sound of a million pennies crashing to earth she said,
'You're not 125 are you?'
'No! Sorry!' I shouted then slammed the door, running upstairs we all hid for ten minutes in Boy child's wardrobe until somebody said,
'You know this probably wouldn't have happened if you had let us use the X-box.'
Half an hour later and one minature whisky from last Christmas, I called my parents and related our hilairious story to my father who said,
'Oh yeah, that'll be the Curtain Witch.'
When 'He Who Pays the Mortagage' arrrived home we were still in the wardrobe.
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