This ‘beauty product’ could save my life

I’ve had high cholesterol and blood pressure for years. Mostly attributed to genes but compounded by a hedonistic lifestyle. So I keep taking the tablets, as they say. And because I religiously take the tablets, I assumed it was all under control. Until I went to the doctor recently and she took my blood pressure. It’s not all OK. It’s through the roof. So I just have to take more tablets. And she suggested I buy a machine that I can use at home to keep an eye on it myself.

So I went online and ordered the cheapest one I could find. And I started getting emails telling me my “beauty product” was on the way. Now it’s a fair stretch of the imagination to call a blood pressure monitor a beauty product but I have to say it cheered me up a tad.

The “beauty product” arrived a few days later and is still sitting on the stairs in its unopened box.

And then I got into a taxi the other day, having just had a fag, and I coughed. “Grand smoker’s cough”, the driver quipped. “Shut up and leave me alone,” I muttered and endeavoured not to engage in a smoking conversation. But he was relentless and told me all about his blood pressure and quadruple by-pass and how he had given up the fags. Now, mind you, he was on 60 a day so I took some solace. Graphic detail I got. He even went so far as to show me his scars at the traffic lights. Rolled up his sleeves and trouser leg. I’m just glad it wasn’t an operation that involved his nether regions. I nodded and smiled, still determined not to get involved but he was having none of it. On and on he went, trying to guilt me out and proffering his advice as to how to give them up. Maybe I’ll open the “beauty product” and walk to my destination in future.