That day's To Do List - the story

Chapter 4
teach: corgi, to punctuate;
deny corgi access to Things To Do Today lists
remember futility of it all
deepen voice
verify reticulations on python

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1 & 2 That says it all, doesn't it? I could have sworn I'd heard an unusual clicking sound the other night when he was supposed to be revising for a test for one of his evening classes - I think it was Welsh history, which he signed up for in the vain hope of discovering, as he fondly imagines to be the case, that one of his ancestors did something valiant in a battle against the marauding English, like giving some army commander a nasty nip on the calf before being sliced in two by a broadsword, but which he finds deadly boring because, as I have said before, he can hardly read or write, and there's not a lot of historically accurate information that can be gleaned from looking at pictures of castles and swarthy Celts with beards and armour. So the clicking I heard was his claws on my keyboard and I won't have it. I just won't. If he ever learns about the internet and gets hold of my credit card I'll be in deep, deep corgi pooh. Literally.

3. The other day I thought something was important, and I've just caught myself at it, thinking things may be important that is, and I need to run through a quick check to get my feet back on the ground and stop myself from building up hopes of perhaps ever having something real and positive with Miss Streatley because when hopes are dashed, as they say, the higher they are the more it hurts. Perhaps no-one says that, actually. But my point is that tempering your life with a little judicious pessimism has to be the way to avoid disappointment, and remembering the futility, the essential and existential meaninglessness of it all, is crucial. So I think I may throw away some of my dinner plates later on, just to prove it. The ones with the nice squid patterns on that Claudio gave me when his restaurant changed themes.

4. Clint Eastwood gets round the whiny, not very deep voice issue by being tall, craggy, lean, with a great body and piercing eyes, as well as a tough, cool style that made him desperately attractive to women from all walks of life, from the sexiest most desirable film stars to cleaners, secretaries and of course librarians. I, on the other hand, lacking every one of those characteristics except perhaps the piercing eyes (my mother calls them my 'mad, staring eyes that make her shudder and wake up screaming in the middle of the night' eyes, bless her, always making fun) need a deeper voice, I'm sure of it, to get any further with Miss Streatley. In those places where people think it reasonable and normal to tinker with their God-given physiology by implanting, tucking, cutting and so on, voices are altered by surgery on the vocal cords, lengthening them for more resonance. After a swift visit to 'The Reel Deal', Wellminstow's second-best fishing shop for a couple of hooks, I managed to snag one of my own vocal cords by dangling the hook, attached to some fishing line, down my throat wrapped in a bit of bacon rind, attached to another piece of line; having swallowed the rind with the hook attached, I pulled the rind back up, leaving the hook in the vicinity of my probably hideously unshapely vocal cords. I'll probably know in a few days whether it's worked, after the swelling goes down.

5. Keith, Runty, Alf the Astrologer and I were in the Mason's Handshake the other night discussing herpetological issues like the claw structure of the iguana and how similar species differentiated themselves in their markings. At this juncture Runty piped up (he'd contributed very little up to that point, to be honest, because he'd thought we were talking about herpes specialists rather than reptiles and he was embarrassed and hoping he didn't get asked any pointed questions about cross-infection and Claudio's new rash) and said that he had a python in his flat that he thought was a reticulated python but could we check because if it wasn't he'd take it back and get a refund. Keith stubbed out his cigarette rather hastily and said pythons weren't his field of expertise, and Alf made his eyes go glazed yet far-seeing and said he thought this particular python was probably a female Aries and therefore he couldn't go near it. Which left me in the position of having to follow Runty back to his flat, sip a revoltingly thin cup of coffee and sit next to him on his lumpy sofa while he wondered aloud if Claudio would ever move in with him. I declined his offer of 'a nice little piece of spam' and made my way home, my shoulder still moist from his tears. Of course there was no python.