Why I Should Always Hold the Remote
My missus is into those reality dating shows.
You know the ones, in which a couple of dozen offensively attractive young idiots get dropped into some secluded, sun-splashed mansion, where they cavort around in their pants and regularly attempt to lick each other’s uvulas.
They have names like ‘Love is Blind’ or ‘Too Hot to Handle’ or ‘Go on, Stick Another One In’ or ‘Spit On It First, You Animal’.
We’ll be sat watching telly on a lazy afternoon and I’ll let her have control of the remote because I know what my life is worth. She’ll ask me if I mind if we watch one of her programmes, and I’ll think to myself, ‘Really? What do you imagine we’ve been doing for the last seven hours?’
I think it very quietly, though. Just in case she’s listening.
She taps away at the remote for a moment, as if on autopilot, and within seconds the screen is filled from corner to corner with various bits of anatomy jiggling and bulging and protruding.
Instantly, my forehead drips with sweat and I check that the kids aren’t around. Even though she watches this shit every single day, I ask myself ‘Is this ok now?’
When I was a lad, softcore porn was tucked away at 11:45pm on Channel 5 and you had to sneak downstairs and put the telly on mute.
It’s amazing how big the difference is between 0 and 1 on the volume control.
But she watches this, bold as brass, in the middle of the day.
I attempt to follow the plot but it’s like trying to plait fog.
They’re all just nobbing. Or talking about nobbing, remembering nobbing, or planning some spontaneous nobbing later when the cameras are set up and the lightings just right.
A girl half my age and looking like she was designed by God to get weak men into trouble is shown climbing hypnotically out of the pool. It’s unclear if they’re showing her in slow motion or if she’s moving that way just to spite me.
‘She’s pretty, isn’t she?’ The Missus asks, innocently.
A trap.
Even in my frazzled and panicked state, I can see that one a mile off. Evolutionary instinct kicks in.
‘You think so? No, not my type at all,’ I reply with all the nonchalance I can desperately muster.
She looks at me suspiciously.
Not enough, must try harder.
‘No, I’ve never liked girls like that’ I continue, in a slightly higher pitch. ‘The whole ‘objectively perfect’ thing? Not my bag at all’.
Still silent
‘I like my women lumpy and a bit funny looking. It adds character.’
She gives me a look without moving her face. I am acutely aware that the egg-timer of my life has sprung a leak and is pissing sinful, perverted sand all over the place.
‘You know what….’ I begin, clutching for any straw that will have me, ‘I think her boyfriend is better looking than she is.
‘OK’
‘Yeah, good looking lad, in decent shape. What’s not to like?’
‘I said OK’
Why is she doing this to me? I wanted to watch the darts.
‘He’s got lovely skin, hasn’t he?’ I say, alarm tugging at my voice, ‘And a kind face. He looks like he would be a very considerate lover’.
So lost am I in my desperate ramblings that don’t notice her turn to face me, concerned.
‘And don’t get me started on the muscles. Glistening there in the midday sun. Bulging.
She has put her phone down and is staring at me now, her mouth agape.
‘And speaking of bulges, how did he get that thing past customs?’
She still isn’t speaking. My mediocre life is flashing before my dirty, dirty eyes and I scramble for any possible way out of this.
‘I like the way the sunlight dances off his nipples!’ I blurt out, tearful with relief.
So, long story short, she says our relationship is a sham and we should spend some time apart.
At least now I get to watch the darts.
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