Things Mrs Jones would not have said 30 years ago

Courtesy of rosezombie - FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Relationships evolve over time. Thirty-three years ago, the future Mrs Jones and I met in a social club at the hospital where we both worked. Like any couple in the early stages of the mating ritual, we were each on our best behaviour: no farting in front of each other; swearing restricted to exclamations; and bowel references were no more graphic than the occasional mention of an ‘upset stomach’.

Nowadays we are less inhibited. I share the following scenarios as illustration:

1. Mrs Jones returns home from work and enters the living room where I’m tip-tapping away on my laptop. My attention is drawn to the twitching of her nostrils. She looks directly at me, accusingly, and asks, ‘Have you shit?’

2. Together on the settee, watching television.

‘I wish you’d stop fidgeting’ I say.

‘I can’t’ she says.

‘Why, what’s the problem?’

‘My arse is stinging like a wasp with a cob on.’

But last week, while we were sitting at the table eating our evening meal, Mrs Jones made a comment that indicated to me how three decades of co-habitation had transformed the nature of our relationship. The rhythmic clicking of stainless steel utensils on ceramic plates, mixed with the occasional slurping of wine, were interrupted by the never-to-be-forgotten comment:

‘Move the condiments nearer to me; my tits keep flopping in my Bolognese sauce!’