I have had a new lodger for a month.
He’s Iranian, and is a barber. He’s a lovely, soft spoken ( but ridiculously over deferential ) guy. He’s so deferential that he insists upon calling me Sir.
I mean no one til him has addressed me that way… and I’ve been around for quite a long time.
Tonight he came in in the middle of me ( trying to cook, following the Hello Fresh recipe. I don’t know, but my brain struggles with recipe type instructions. I know so little about cooking that none of it seems intuitive to me at all, or at least not yet. I have to read every line about a thousand times. The cooking malarkey is ok for the first 5 minutes but after that all of a sudden you have to do about 10 things at the same time.
Being in a chair and having to wheel about balancing things in my lap ( that I can’t feel or grip with my knees or anything.. ) well anything could fall or spill if I’m not careful, and it’s ever so easy to bump into stuff all of the time.

My music is on really loud ( as I’d just downloaded Spotify onto my clever telly and it’s suddenly playing at REALLY high volume through my amplifier via a fire stick ) and in ‘creeps’ my deferential lodger, as though he’s Gollum and I’m the Dark Lord.
Now it’s like a nightclub in there, and he’s saying something to me. I’ve got stuff on my lap and 4 pans with stuff in all cooking.. I’m not a natural at this, I can tell you. I’m saying ‘ pardon!? ‘ as loud as I can and he’s saying something very quietly ( being deferential ) and sort of waving something brown around near the freezer.
Slightly exasperated I wheel over to the amp and turn it down, with stuff in my lap, and say ‘ what is it you are saying ?’

He says, quietly.. Sir can I put this in your freezer….? ( the ‘ this ‘ being a Magnum lollipop ) I mean seriously… he’s actually asking me that… seeing I’m pretty busy and it’s not easy for me?
I tell him to please not ask me such questions.. and that of course it’s ok … good grief…

I turn the music back up and carry on.

Five minutes later he’s back … speaking so quietly I can’t possibly hear him. Again I go to the amplifier and turn it down. Yes I ask him, what is it?
He says ‘ I have a KFC and I’m asking if you’d like some ?’

I say no thank you… but I’m thinking Who the Actual Fuck do you think I’m cooking for, with all these complicated pans… and who do you think is going to have to eat it … and who would seriously, given the 2 previous, want to also have a Kentucky..?

Well he’s a bit ‘ portly ‘ so presumably him I guess…

After that he offered me one of his little individual tiramisus… that he seems to have an endless supply of .. and that I do always say no to..

Are all lodgers a bit special or is it just the ones I get?

But seriously with this cooking thing… how can a meal for one EVER be worth about 10 pans / dishes / plates, with knives and forks and a grater, and then about 15 minutes of one handed washing up ..?

Give me peanut butter on toast in 2 minutes any day of the week… surely you can’t argue with that one?