Reasons why I had to slice my cheese today

My sister bought me a grater for my recent birthday. She'd read this post mentioning difficulties with controlling grated carrot and decided to help me out. The grater has a container underneath it which is meant to catch all the gratings. Here it is.


It's very shiny and sharp. You know how when you decorate a room, the rest of your house looks shabby and ashamed? My old grater looked the same, once compared with the newcomer - all sorry for itself in its decrepitude - so we threw it away and my husband said he'd find a place for the new one in a kitchen cupboard.

I was going to use it this afternoon. My husband went out for a walk, and I'd done seven hours' solid A level marking, having started at eight in the morning, after which I think I deserved a five course meal in a Heston Blumenthal restaurant and a night in the Hilton, let alone flippin' cheese on toast. I put some bread under the grill. I got the butter ready. I found the cheese in the fridge. Then I looked to see where the grater was. I tried all the cupboards, but couldn't see it anywhere.

I knew I shouldn't have let my husband Put it Away. He can Put-Away for England and once he's Put Something Away, your hopes of finding it without a compass, a map and a good sense of direction are as slim as a banker's conscience.

In the end, I had to slice the cheese instead of grate it. Okay, it's a First World Problem, but I was intending to send my sister a picture of my grated cheese all tidy in its box and brighten up her day.

I think my husband must have had a deeply traumatic experience in his childhood. Perhaps one day he didn't put his socks in the washing basket and his mum grounded him for a month. All I know is, he lives by the principle of 'Anything Left Out Gets Put Away'. Sometimes, when I'm cooking, I get out a spoon to use later, then find when I need it he's already washed it, dried it, and Put It Away.

He'll take your mug from you well before you've finished the tea. He'll tidy up a magazine when you're only on page 2 and just stopped reading to go to the toilet. I swear he looks at me with intent when I sit down for too long, wondering if I'll fit in a corner of the wardrobe.

He's useful, though, when it comes to holidays. He can pack a case or the back of a car like Cassius Clay could pack a punch. He squeezes it all in, fitting toiletries into shoes, and rolling towels up to nestle in suitcase crevices.

The only thing is, it's all fitted in so tightly that when you open a case he's packed, or a cupboard, or a drawer, things spring out, like suppressed emotions, and all hell - and socks, deodorants or cans of beans - break loose, like Jack in the Box.

It's probably morbid of me to muse on what he's going to do with me if I die before him, and how he's going to stuff me into my coffin. I can see it now.

Worm 1: I'm heading in here. This one's fresh.
Worm 2: I'll come too.
Worm 1: You'll be bloody lucky. I'm having to breathe in as it is.

Anyway, when my husband came home from his walk, I asked him where he'd put the grater. He showed me. He'd slid it in between a box of pegs and a food mixer, sideways on, so that I didn't recognise it at that angle. It was like one of those quizzes where you're shown a picture of a gadget but from a weird perspective and you have to guess.

'I had to have sliced cheese instead of grated,' I said. But for some reason, he thought I was making a fuss over nothing much.




Comments

  1. Anonymous3/5/15 12:47

    Brilliantly funny! I loved your similes. I see you are applying the same principles you taught us at our writing group a few months ago, with dazzling effect! But you really are going to have to get your husband out of his Putting Away habit. It sounds terrifying to me...

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    Replies
    1. I'm glad you like my similes. I have had to cut down on them - when Liz edited my book (yes, she did mine too) she told me I was overdoing it. Perhaps I should have given a few to my husband to Put Away. I'd never have seen them again, that's for sure. Thanks for commenting, Sheila.

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  2. You could hire him out . With the coming holiday season he'd be very popular , especially with anyone planning a trip with Ryanair .
    And while he's making someone else's possessions disappear , yours remain undisturbed .

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    Replies
    1. You are so right. He needs to be kept busy.

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  3. Huh. I think I'd get along quite well with your husband.

    Love,
    Janie

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    Replies
    1. Well, if he keeps hiding my new gadgets like that, you can borrow him for a while and see how it works out.

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    2. If he can be persuaded to put items in alphabetical order, then I think we'd get on very well.

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    3. Oh my, oh my, you would love our bookcases! I can put my hand on a Proust within seconds.

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  4. Funny post! But on the upside, you must have no clutter in your house.

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  5. You have no idea how lucky you are, having a putting it away husband. I have the leave it where it is sort. As for the cheese, sliced is better on toast, I think. Grated just falls off. Posh grater, though. I feel quite envious.

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    Replies
    1. Swings and roundabouts ....For instance, he packs the freezer so tightly and expertly that I have to ask him if I want a bag of peas. This feels like over-dependence!!

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  6. Cutting the cheese? Isn't that a euphemism?

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  7. My husband Puts Nothing Away !
    On a camping trip to Devon with two friends when we were young, two of us went to the shower block intending to cook a proper camp breakfast afterwards. Meanwhile the other girl tidied us up - right into the back of her car - everything Put Away so no breakfast was had. I think we had a pub lunch later !

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    1. I will suggest it to my husband. 'Every time you Put Something Away I was Still Using, you have to buy me a pub lunch.' That'll sort him.

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    2. I can se it ... Poor and squiffy but band-box neat .

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  8. Loved this and could definitely do with a husband that PUTS THINGS AWAY!

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    Replies
    1. Glad you liked it, Caitlin! And thanks for following - it's much appreciated. I'm guessing you have a husband who Leaves Things Out!

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  9. "my husband said he'd find a place for the new one in a kitchen cupboard."
    Geez, how about in the exact same place the old grater used to live, so you could find it easy when you need it??
    Anything that's replacing something else, should go where the old one was. Makes sense, right?
    My sister-in-law was one of those tidy-up freaks. She'd whisk away the ashtray and wash it as soon as you'd butted a cigarette. Then wash down the table in case any ash had spilled.

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    Replies
    1. Oh, if only life were that simple! The new grater is bigger and taller, so it wouldn't fit where the old one was. Sigh.

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