Why the Husband won't be allowed to go away again

Husband goes away. Says, 'Don't forget to put out the bin and recycling on Tuesday.'

'No, I won't forget to put out the bin and recycling on Tuesday,' says I.

Two minutes later, he says. 'You won't forget to put out the bin and recycling on Tuesday, will you?'

'No, I won't forget to put out the bin and recycling on Tuesday.'

'The bin and recycling are collected on Tuesday,' he says.

'I know,' I says, 'and it's no good rephrasing just to make it sound like something different. I teach syntax, y'know.'

'Okay, sorry. But I thought you might forget.'

'Forget what?'

'To put out the bin and recycling on Tuesday.'

'Ha ha, got you!!'

'That wasn't very funny,' he says.

'Neither is having the same sentence repeated at you seventeen times,' says I.

So, on Monday evening, I goes out the back door. Pick up the recycling boxes. Carry them through the side alley. Put them out the front. (I'm embarrassed. I know the neighbours are looking and saying, 'Hey, hey, look at this, Archie. That woman. Putting the bins and recycling out. She never puts the bins and recycling out. So, she can move.) I goes back down the alley. Manhandle the green bin back down it and dump it out the front. Look at the green bin speculatively. Hm. Look in the bin. Hm. This is all garden rubbish, not black bags of household stuff. Hm. Go back down the alley. Look in the other bin, a black one. Ah. There's the household rubbish. (I'm embarrassed. I know the neighbours weren't saying what I thought they were saying. Instead, they were saying, 'Hey, hey, Archie, look at this. That woman - the one I thought couldn't move - is putting the wrong bin out. What a dork! Doesn't she know? Ha ha.) Bring the black bin down the alley and put it out the front, my head down so I can't see the twitching curtains. Go back down the alley.

Tuesday evening, I comes back from work. Bin still there. Bin still full. Recycling boxes still there. Recycling boxes still full.

I rings Husband. 'Oy!' I say. 'Any idea why the rubbish and recycling hasn't been collected?'

'Oh, sorry,' he says. 'I told you Tuesday, and it's actually Wednesday they're collected.'

'So that would be why no one else had put their bin and recycling out when I went to work this morning, then?'

'I guess so.'

'And that would be why our bin is the only one on the street, sitting in lonely splendour, blocking up the pavement like a feral block of flats so that no one can get past.'

'Yeah. Sorry.'

'You will be.'

(I'm embarrassed. Really, really embarrassed. Because now I know the neighbours definitely weren't saying what I thought they were saying.)