I reached in to my pants... and felt something odd
The other night I was eating tea while watching television. I know I shouldn’t do this, indeed my father would turn in his grave. Eating tea while watching the box was an unforgivable crime in my dad’s eyes.
I feel pretty sure had I returned home one evening and confessed to robbing a bank, he’d reply, ‘that’s all very well but your mother’s made shepherd’s pie, now turn that TV off and come sit at the table.’
Each evening, come what may, during my childhood we gathered as a family in the kitchen.
‘But dad,’ I’d whine, ‘Pete Battersby and Nigel Ruecroft are allowed to eat in the lounge and watch Neighbours every night.
‘That’s very nice for Peter and Nigel,’ my dad would patiently reply, ‘but in this house we eat our tea together, in the kitchen, with no television. And if you stop talking and eat your peas then you’ll be able to get back to the TV a bit quicker.’
My dad was spot on of course and now I’m a father myself I do usually insist we all sit and eat at the same time and do quaint old-fashioned things like talk to each other.
On this occasion, because it had taken an age to get the children fed, we delayed our own tea until after they’d gone to bed and were so shattered that we took it into the lounge, put the telly on, and zoned out in the tired, disillusioned and fed-up way that parents do all over the country.
As I mechanically moved the fork towards my mouth, which I find is always necessary in order to eat, I felt something drop off.
I looked for it on the lounge floor for about a minute, eventually resorting to getting on my hands and knees and peering under the settee in case it had kind of spun backwards, but I couldn’t see it, which was odd.
I felt mildly puzzled about where my food had gone but, given it was hardly worth ruining the night over, I carried on with my evening. It was about two hours later as I shifted in my chair that I felt something wet near my groin.
I reached in to my pants and felt something odd.
It was a little chunk of beetroot which had fallen not on to the lounge floor but with spectacular precision into the leg of the shorts I was wearing and then worked its way down towards the groin.
I fished it out, cursing slightly, inspected it for a moment, then popped it in my mouth (waste not want not), and thought nothing more of it.
Later that evening when I eventually managed to lever myself off the sofa, I walked upstairs to go to the toilet.
I heard a gasp from behind and turned around to see Mrs C gawping at my bottom.
At the risk of sounding immodest, I do possess a very attractive behind and indeed in my 20s I was voted Rear of the Year.
I insist we all sit and eat at the same time and do old-fashioned things like talk to each other
But then I saw Mrs C’s face and realised it was etched not with admiration or appreciation but horror.
‘What’s up?’ I said, concerned. ‘You… you,’ she said, stuttering from shock. ‘You need to go to a doctor. Now. You’ve got … [dramatic pause] … anal bleeding.’
I looked over my shoulder and saw a bright vivid red mark on the back of my shorts.
Good god, she was right.
For one long moment I was horrified and began frantically googling the emergency out-ofhours number for my local GP.
Then, amid the mad panic, I suddenly remembered what had happened while eating tea.
It gradually dawned on me it wasn’t blood but a food spillage stain. ‘It’s beetroot, thank god, it’s beetroot’, I blurted, at which Mrs C looked very puzzled.
When I told her she seemed disappointed it wasn’t actual blood, as if she’d been hoping it was a life-threatening condition.
Anyway, the upside for me, if not her, is, I hope, that I’m not about to die. The downside is that even after seven washes, I still can’t get the bloody stain out.