GOLD TOP

I wrote this a while ago, but it kept getting “bumped” (as the saying goes), as other more “interesting” things came along to talk about. As ever, when I run out of things that I consider might even slightly qualify as being vaguely interesting, I fall back on those pieces that even I have considered too dull to be worthy of further examination, so here you are, with my humblest apologies for wasting your time on such trivialities, and now, not even up-to-the-minute trivialities at that…

I managed to scare the milkman recently. It wasn’t deliberate it was just an example of unfortunate timing. It had got to the time of year when the dear old milkman has to ask pertinent questions of each of his customers about if, and indeed how much, milk is needed in each particular household over the course of the festive season. Things, it seems, cannot be allowed to go on as usual because some of us require more, some of us less, and some of us none at all. This can get a bit tricky when your independent provider has to make bulk orders from the dairy when even the dairy itself might be closed for the holidays and so enquiries have to be made and, in our case at least, this involves the filling in of a piece of paper and leaving it inside a milkbottle for him to collect on the next delivery day.

So it was that, in the depths of a dark morning I found myself scribbling down random quantities that are bound to qualify as “far too much” for our needs over the period of one, or perhaps two, entire days when the supermarkets will close their doors to allow their staff, all of whom no doubt bear the surname Cratchit (a bit profligate with his old seed was old Bob, I fear… despite being fictional…), to spend at least one day in the bosom of their families, the unhappy wretches.

Anyway, having filled up the form with the random notion that perhaps double the usual order will be necessary with both of us being at home for the duration, I duly popped it into an empty bottle and placed it upon the doorstep to await the day’s delivery.

Now, one of the slight issues I have with now having to go out for the day to earn what almost amounts to a crust is that, if the milk is late being delivered it gets to fester upon the doorstep all day and is also prone to potential acts of petty larceny (i.e. being filched), or the unwarranted attention of any passing opportunistic tits, or just turning into a rancid form of cheese. None of those dairy-related transformations tend to be much of an issue in the depths of winter, when the chill of the air is as effective as any refrigerator, but in the summer it might very well become one.

In the past our loyal and trusted neighbours used to let themselves in and place them in the fridge for us, but that kind of relationship went away when they did, and so the two bottles can spend the day exposed to all these dangers whilst simultaneously advertising to the passing world, and any villains thereof, that we may very well be not in residence (I could, of course merely be sleeping...), much like the Queen’s Royal Standard at the Palace but in reverse.

Granted, I did used to occasionally forget that it was delivery day and leave it outside anyway, but that was a risk any intruder has to run if they force an entry into an occupied hovel. Mind you, coming face-to-face with each other unexpectedly under such circumstances would probably cause both of us to make a run for it, I suppose. I hope so, anyway. The alternative does not need contemplating.

Anyway, recently the ol’ milky has been running a bit late and so the delivery has been tending to happen long after I’ve pointed the car’s nose into the morning traffic and headed on my way and, whilst this does tend to add more than a slight amount of angst to those days, I tend to forget about it fairly quickly in the hurly-burly of trying to earn an honest buck.

“So, what about the incident of scaring him, then?”, I hear you cry, ever so faintly. Ah well, you see. Upon the morning in question, I was almost at the point of departure. Coats were on, scarves were being wrapped and boots attached to unwilling feet, when I noticed the shape of a mostly bald head through the door glass at about the level of the handle. Quick as a flash, my mind, with the mental agility of the steel trap it so often resembles, realised that, in the very nick of time, the milk had indeed arrived. Like lightning I seized the door handle and opened the door only to be face-to-face with the very milkman whom I had so rarely met despite our many years of transaction.

We communicate, if any banks are listening and choose to care, mostly by cheque.

He was still there, you see?

Outside.

Fumbling around with the piece of paper that was our Christmas order requirements.

I thing I near scared him half to death, the poor man.

Still, with a cheery “Morning!” we were soon both happily on our separate ways.

Later on that morning, two of us were chatting in the office whilst the third was off making a brew, which at least makes this part of the tale vaguely milk-related and therefore almost relevant. Just before “brew-time” we had been talking about a story m’colleague heard Wilf Lunn tell about the regular daily defecation that a dog used to do outside his basement flat window and how he once went outside with a can of gold paint to spray it with as a kind of rebellious act of ceremony.

As m’other colleague was away tending to the kettle, I began to tell this tale of milkmania, because we know how to have fun and intelligent, in-depth conversation, we office folk. With brews in hand, m’other colleague returned to hear this tale of balding heads seen through glass doors half told, and assumed that it was a continuation of our former subject and that I had sprayed his head with my own can of gold paint.

Happily, any confusion was quickly clarified, although the dreadful pun of “Gold Top” hung painfully in the air for much of the rest of the morning.

Sorry about that.