Plungers, posers and Pringles

I bought a sink plunger this morning. Occasionally, our kitchen sink is a bit slow to drain away and we always say at these moments 'Where's the sink plunger? Oh, we haven't got one,' but it doesn't happen often enough to be annoying, thereby goading me into buying one in order to avoid bouts of kitchen rage.

But today, as I was in Wilkos intent on buying my wire brush for outdoor furniture scrubbing, along with more rubber gloves and some wood treatment/ preservative/ cleaning up and buffing stuff I passed a selection of plungers (small ones, tall ones, some as big as your head) and thought, 'Aha! I'll get one of those.' I selected one that had what was called a 'hand grip' - a short handle with a knobble on the end for easy plunging and therefore suitable for me to use well into my eighties should I start suffering from weak wrists. It was only £1.69 which was a bit of a bargain, especially as it can double as a Dalek appendage if Andy decides to go fancy-dressing anywhere as a Dalek.

Unloading my purchases at home Tybalt immediately put his head inside the plunger and got stuck.
'Get it off me!' he yelled, running around the kitchen,banging blindly into cupboards, chairs and his deluxe three storey cat scratching post. Well, they say that curiosity kills the cat. Sometimes it makes them look like complete numpties, too.
'You look like a Dalek,' I said, unhooking the rubber lip from behind his ears.
'I don't want to look like a Dalek,' said Tybalt, whose fancy dress costume of choice would be either Casanova or Lord Byron, which ever one wore the biggest frilly shirt. Anyway, I popped him free of the plunger and he ran off to lick his tail in that nonchalant 'I meant for that to happen' kind of way that cats do when they've done something silly.

My poser for the day concerns my daughter Heather who is graduating from university in July. I am in a quandary as to what to get her as a 'Well done, what a fantastic child you are for graduating and remaining mostly sober for the last three years' present. I've already got her something cute and silly which I saw on Saturday when we were in Canterbury. What I'm thinking is something keepsakey or useful (no, sorry Heather, can't stretch to a car - unless the Inland Revenue inadvertently adds a couple of zeros to the end of my tax rebate that is). When I graduated, my Mum gave me a silver locket with the year of my graduation engraved on it. I wear it periodically (not being a great jewellery wearer myself) because it has a photo of Andy in it. I was wearing it at school once. One of the students asked me what was inside so I showed her the picture.
'That's your husband, Miss?' said the student.
'Yes,' I said, smiling because it is a particularly cute photo.
'What does he do?'
'He's a vet.'
The student inspected the photo more closely. 'He looks more like a builder,' she pronounced.
'He will be thrilled to know that,' I said.

I've spent a couple of fruitless hours researching 'Graduation Gifts' on the interwebbly. The trouble is, I quite like my daughter and don't really want to inflict the suggested gifts upon her. So the search is still on for that thoughtful, tasteful, useful yet at the same time attractive and decorative memento of her academic achievement.

And finally, Pringles. In the paper today, there is an article reporting on the outcome of a court case where a judge has ruled that Pringles are subject to VAT as they are potatoey enough to be classed as a crisp.
'Aren't Pringles a brand of posh knitwear?' says Tybalt. 'I'm sure my pink golfing sweater has a Pringles logo on it.'
'In this case, no,' I say. (You see, that's what happens when you get your head wodged in a sink plunger - it sucks out the rational thought part of your brain). 'In this case, they are talking about the very moreish snack which I no longer allow as part of my diet as I'd eat a whole tube in one sitting especially the cheese and chive and the barbecue flavours.'
'Ah,' says Tybalt.
'And they are deemed potatoey enough to be classed as a crisp, thereby subject to VAT at 15%,' I say.
'What about potatoes?' says Tybalt. 'I thought fresh food wasn't VATable.'
'It isn't, as far as I know,' I say.
'But potatoes are potatoey,' says Tybalt. 'In fact, they are 100% potato whereas your non-knitwear Pringle is...' and he leans over my shoulder to read the report for himself, '...only 42% potato.'
'I really don't know,' I say, trying to turn the page and distract him with a story about a Tory MP who claimed a £1,600 duck house on expenses.
'You don't spend that on our housing,' accuse the hens who are in the kitchen stocking up on chocolate digestives and pink wafer biscuits. 'Why don't you spend that on us? Aren't we worth it or something or nothing?'
'I need to know about the potatoes,' says Tybalt.
'Aaaaaaarggghhhhh!!!' I yell, running from the kitchen before the insanity police get me.
'What's up with her?' says Miggins.
'Kitchen rage,' sighs Tybalt. 'It happens sometimes. Mostly after a blockage.'
'What she needs is a sink plunger,' says Poo. 'We'll get her one for her birthday.'

(Here is a P.S for the vet nurses, following on from my blog of 2 days ago when I may have inadvertently given the impression that Andy sits in the corner of an evening making Darth Vader helmets out of stickle bricks. This was an example of creative imagination. He doesn't really use stickle bricks. He uses Lego....)