Cassandra - Times Online - WBLG

My New Addiction

Over the past few days, I’ve become completely addicted to Lemsip. I woke up the day before Christmas with swollen glands and a terrible sore throat. I Googled "swollen glands" but as soon as I saw the word "cancer" I shut the computer off. A friend here in London suggested I try Lemsip. They don’t have anything like it in America and one hot mug of yellowy lemony liquid later, I was hooked.

So today – Boxing Day – my friend called to ask how I’m feeling. “I don’t know," I said. As long as I’m taking Lemsip, I feel okay. Or rather, I feel nothing – which is even better than okay.

“How many cups a day are you drinking?” she asked. I looked around. Empty sachets were everywhere. Then I looked on the back of the box. The recommended dose is four a day. Four a day? I’d had four cups before noon. I was treating it like coffee.

That’s probably the reason I’m not feeling the caffeine withdrawal….

Just A Day

At an Internet place and the woman next to me in the grey sweatshirt is laughing out loud while reading an e-mail. It doesn't stop. What could possibly be that funny? Who's written to her - Woody Allen?
I've never laughed out loud at an e-mail in my life. I'll smile – or giggle, quietly. But it certainly doesn't sustain. And it's definitely not an ongoing, side-splitting belly laugh.

I lean over and glance at her screen. It's in Spanish.

So, I've decided this year not to get depressed about Christmas. I'm ignoring it entirely. It's a challenge in London, though, because everything shuts down. Even the morgue. It's hard to pretend it's just like any other day when you can't get a newspaper or buy an orange.

It's comforting to think about all the other people who, like me, are looking forward to having it over with.
You know what I mean?

Baby Game

I'm sitting in a cafe trying to work and a cluster of mothers with tiny babies arrive. One of the mothers is holding her little one in her arms and it (I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl because it was bald) is staring at me with the big blue eyes. I stare back.

The mother is now looking at me as well and I can tell she is waiting for the compliment. Then she looks shocked. No compliment?

I say nothing. I'm having a staring contest with the baby. I don't say a word. I enjoy that the mother is having a difficult time with this. I can tell she's thinking: how can it be that this person staring at my baby is not commenting on how adorable he/she is? But I'm firm. No compliment, no googly noise, no smile, nothing. I decide to stare the baby down until it gets bored and looks away.

It keeps staring. I'm tempted to say "What are you looking at?" but I don't. It occurs to me the baby might be thinking the exact same thing.

Eventually I lose interest and go back to work.

Deli Man Update

Several people have inquired about the outcome with Deli Man. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s a link to last week’s column – and it will make sense.

At the moment, we’re not in a good place. I called for the usual and an hour later, nothing had arrived. When I called back, another man answered, apologised and said it would be “on the house”. It was a generous gesture. So unexpected – and so I took it as a goodwill offering.

The next morning I found out it was a mistake. Deli Man called and said he’d left someone else in charge for an hour while he went to the bank and he had not been authorised to give me a freebie. He said I owed him for the latte.

We got in a fight over the phone. “If you offer something on the house,” I said, “it’s not right to take it back!” He raised his voice to talk over me: “We don’t even deliver on Saturday! I was doing you a favour!”

Where did that come from? “You should have told me,” I replied. “That’s not my responsibility. You said it was on the house and now you’re saying it’s not? It’s rude.” For about 10 seconds there was silence. Then he said: “You paying or not?”

The magic is over.

Maybe we need couples counselling?