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I suppose it was inevitable I should come down with a bug this past week.

You may recall last week, while Mrs P and I were babysitting Miss 22 months, an emergency ensued involving
a bad cough.

This led to a frantic phone call, a fast ride in an ambulance and an evening spent in the emergency department at the local hospital as various medical people did their stuff.

Long story short, the wee one eventually went home to recuperate and is now slowly on the mend.

Granddad, on the other hand, appears to have picked up the bug in question and is now suffering. Big time.

Well, at least that’s what he insists. Mrs P is less convinced.

She reckons he’s got what is commonly referred to among the less than sympathetic – and often female – members of the average household as “man flu”.

It would be fair to say I “bristled with indignation” at this suggestion. And just doing so gave me a headache. So I “furrowed” my brow to deal with the pain and that made my nose itch. So then I sneezed. That made me cough. Which hurt. So I went “Owww!”

And Mrs P laughed.

That’s when I made a mental note to let her know I was less than impressed with her empathy, or lack thereof, and would be bringing it up next time we had an argument about how much nurses get paid and whether they were worth more an hour than The Scottish Plumber who, according to Mrs P, doesn’t even save lives.

He would argue differently of course, and often has over one or two convivial ales. I mean if he didn’t install toilet facilities, some people would just keep eating and drinking and, well, explode wouldn’t they?

But I digress.

So, there I am “bristling” and “furrowing” and generally feeling like a word with similar letters to “hit”, and she’s at the counter in the kitchen explaining how women are better at dealing with illness than men.

At this stage, I’m three yards away, lying on the couch in front of the telly using the cold flannel she’s gotten me to dab away the beads of sweat on my forehead. Beside me is the glass of fresh orange juice she got me earlier.

It’s on the small table she pulled across the carpet for me because I was too weak. Next to the TV remote and that morning’s paper she went down to the shop to get me.

“But I’m in a lot of pain,” I whimper.

I knew I’d crossed the line the second the words rolled from the back of my (sore) throat and down along the length of my tongue.

Cardinal rule number one for any bloke is never, ever, under any circumstances, tell a woman you are in pain. And certainly not one who has added a couple to the world’s population.

Such comments are apt to be stored up and come back to bite you at any given time for no apparent reason. It’s the law. Anyway.

As my ill-chosen words make the short journey across the lounge to the kitchen – this was definitely one time when I wish “open plan” hadn’t been invented – I notice she has a very large knife in her hand.

Slowly, very slowly in fact, as if to prolong the moment, she smiles.

Think one of those psychological thriller films where the woman is a total-nut-job, knife-wielding murderer and the smile is inserted to tell you she’s about to do some dastardly slashing deed with it. Oh what drama!

I think I can even hear the faint sound of spooky children laughing in the background! Have I fallen into a Stephen King horror novel or something?

The sound of the blade slicing through flesh jars me back to reality.

She’s saying nothing. But she knows I’ve said the wrong thing. And I know she knows I know.

Then there’s that slicing sound again.

In my delirium I do a quick inventory of bodily parts. I’ve offended her while she’s armed. Best check I’m still intact. I start with the obvious and am relieved to find it’s still there.

But now she’s talking to me.

“I know you’re not well,” she’s saying soothingly. “Just keep your fluids up and keep taking the Panadol and you’ll be fine”.

Cautiously I nod.

I go for some polite casual conversation, hoping it will diffuse the situation.

“What are you doing?” I croak.

‘I’m just slicing some bacon for the soup I’m making you,” she says.

I closed my eyes and laid back on the couch happy in the knowledge the woman in my life was a wonderful, caring individual after all and not a total-nut-job, knife-wielding psycho.