Grumpy Old Tits (1704 hits)
Category: RomanceLabels: fiction
Rating: 1.93 on 36 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Flash Harry (View user info) at 2008-10-24 07:14:52 EDT
When you live with someone for long enough, so long that you share almost an entire lifetime together, it's hard not to blur the lines. It's hard to see yourself as one person, as an individual. Instead you see both as part of the same: one opinion, one thought, one being.
That, at least, is the outward appearance. Those unspoken thoughts of rebellion and anarchy go unuttered, but they are there all the same, broiling beneath the pallid exterior. You can see them if you look closely enough. That flicker of contempt that is blinked away as quickly as it appeared that wonders 'who is this old bugger, and why are they living in my house?'
Mr and Mrs Carmichael shared all of these traits, although they would never dream of admitting to them. Mr Carmichael never told his wife, for example, that it infuriated him when she wandered straight from the shower to the bedroom, dripping water all over the floor. He would never reveal that her telephone-voice made him cringe, or that he hated her bolognaise sauce, or that it made him feel physically nauseous when she absent-mindedly picked at her toes as they watched television, or that the hats she bought for him were garish. It annoyed him that Mrs Carmichael insisted on reading in bed, which meant that he invariably had to try to get to sleep while the bedside lamp still glowed. And he would certainly never tell her that he could in fact walk passably well, that his wheelchair was just a personal preference, and not a medical necessity.
It had turned out far better than he could ever have suspected, in fact. After only a few months of his new wheelchair-ridden life, Mrs Carmichael began to complain of aching in her hips and lower back. Eager to ravage the arthritis further, he began to talk in hushed whispers, causing his wife to bend over so that she could hear him when he spoke. The constant pushing and stooping caused bedlam in the joints, and soon she was on a course of painkillers and antibiotics, with vague talk of a fluid-draining operation being a future possibility.
Mrs Carmichael was no better. To all and sundry she was the very embodiment of caring elderliness who supported her crippled husband with grim determination and never a word of complaint. Nobody could suspect, as she pushed him about in his wheelchair and fitted her life around his, the stewing resentment she harboured. She regretted ever changing her name to his after being wed, for her maiden name was far prettier than the harsh, grinding surname she had been stuck with. She often wondered what happened to the ambitious young man she fell in love with all those years ago, who brought her dreams to life and caused her heart to swell. Never mind.
She had ways, although she would perhaps never admit them even to herself, of avenging herself, and although they were petty they made her life bearable with moments of joy. It was worth, for example, missing out on an hour's sleep at night in order that she could further Mr Carmichael's rapid decline to baldness. She would rest herself on a pillow and gently wield her tweezers, carefully plucking and pulling and hiding behind her book if ever her husband stirred. She started, strategically, at the hairline, gradually tugging the silver hair upwards. After a few weeks, when a receding hairline had begun to announce itself, she centred her attack on the very crown of the head, so that the entire growth began to thin and the scalp shined beneath. As a rejoinder to this scheme, she took it upon herself to buy him ill-fitting and unattractive hats, determining that his head would get cold if he did not wear them. She had amassed a remarkable collection of tweed trilbies, tartan caps and fleecy bonnets.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Mr Carmichael had no idea that his wife laced a good majority of his food with laxatives and, if she was feeling particularly mischievous, Viagra. She took great pleasure in sabotaging him in this way just before visitors were due, or if they were going out, and somehow stifled a smile when her confused husband was moved to demand a rug be placed over his lap. In return, Mrs Carmichael was perfectly ignorant to the fact that when she lay in one of her many baths, her husband would leap from his chair and alter the time on all of the clocks in the house, re-arrange foodstuffs in the higher cupboards, and steal lightbulbs from the ceiling. She never uttered a word about these inconsistencies to her husband, but often lay awake at night (after plucking her husband with tactful subtlety) in a fearful trance, as she felt the dementia that she had diagnosed herself with lap at her mind in waves.
Strangely enough Mr and Mrs Carmichael loved one another despite all of this, albeit for entirely the wrong reasons. They needed company, as sad as it seems, and they had grown so set in their ways that nobody else would put up with them, except perhaps from sheltered housing. And neither of them wanted that. So they were happy, in a way, to be the quintessential old couple: loving, loyal and inseparable, each careful to torment the other just enough to amuse themselves, and to feel that hollow sense of satisfaction, but never enough to push the other completely away.
User Reviews
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-03-31 08:31:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2008-10-27 21:18:13 WST (#)
Ranking: 2
Like The Twits.
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*nods*
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-10-28 03:52:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sorry orphy, my phone is the only Internet I have now and they keyboard auto corrects things when you're not looking.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-10-27 20:42:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was going to write a scathing review about blah blah blah love blah blah but really, it's a cute story.
I'm just hoping it won't be mine is all.
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2008-10-27 14:53:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2008-10-27 09:18:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Like The Twits.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-27 09:06:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I JUST HATE 'CURTAIN' EVIL GENIUS, LM!
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2008-10-27 08:45:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
exceptional. I would be terrified to grow old like this with my boyfriend. He has a curtain evil genius that would bring down the most study of souls to a jibbering wreck. I'm living in fear of april fools day.
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-27 04:14:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
even if i didn't break it, fj, someone else always will.
you will never be 'allowed' an uber streak :(
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2008-10-27 00:12:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This reminded me of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"
I think I would have enjoyed this more if it was a bit longer and more detailed, oh well.
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2008-10-26 21:51:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2008-10-25 08:50:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Gator (user info) at 2008-10-25 01:21:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I REALLY liked that, thank you and well done
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2008-10-24 15:21:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read all that.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-24 14:45:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2008-10-24 14:43:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This would make a good TV series.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2008-10-24 14:36:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Director (user info) at 2008-10-24 13:34:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-10-24 13:19:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That's why I married and divorced young. I knew that happened.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:44:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
TITS?
I likes 'em.
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:16:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I've never even heard of squall before. Perhaps you do know your stuff about this weather malarkey...
Which brings me onto something else. The weather reports are dull in their current format - so how about a shake-up. Some weather-related human interest stories. Okay, so you can tell us what the weather's like, but what effect does that have?
See http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article4855319.ece for the kind of thing I'm thinking about.
*shelters beneath umbrella*
Submitted by weather (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:12:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Squall!
Submitted by weather (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:11:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Typhoon!
Submitted by weather (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:11:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Thunder!
Submitted by weather (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:11:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I'm just here to break a drought. This post needed some rain.
Submitted by Banjo (user info) at 2008-10-24 12:07:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't see how anybody could fail to notice hair being plucked from their head! Its bloody painful!!!
I don't look like anybody...
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2008-10-24 11:38:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Submitted by inion_de_trua (user info) at 2008-10-24 11:38:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-10-24 11:07:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sure we are :) xx
Submitted by sexualchocolate1984 (user info) at 2008-10-24 09:54:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was good, could have done with an image though, perhaps Edward Gorey's images of a woman tipping her husbands wheelchair over a cliff. - Don't know, that was just in my head the whole time.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-10-24 09:40:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sandmantate (user info) at 2008-10-24 09:02:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-10-24 08:23:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Sphagnum (user info) at 2008-10-24 08:11:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-10-24 08:04:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is true, ive developed a long tail and claws since my cat moved in
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Yeah, and my cat has started to look and act like a baboon.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-10-24 08:04:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This is true, ive developed a long tail and claws since my cat moved in
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-10-24 07:42:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
People who have lived with one another long enough will also start to physically resemble each other. Weird. And somewhat creepy.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-10-24 07:26:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The internet will revolutionise old age.