That Look!

When 'The Cat' first arrived, we believed we'd bought a delightful feline companion with clean habits and a happy disposition, until the fateful night he amused our friends by squatting under the dining table begging for Dim Sum prawns.  Previously that day, he'd been haunting birds in next door's garden and had topped up his nutritional, well-balanced diet with Peshwari naan.  After letting out a long stream of noxious gas, he got the biggest prawns and the widest berth. It was then that Alphonse formulated That Look! which loosely translated mean "You Can Really Pick 'em!"  Sadly, he had good cause to use the Raven stare again this week when I came home from Job 2.1 with the glum tidings that "due to an administrative error" we bank-staff had not been paid.

Really, it's not the financial situation that made Alphonse settle me down in front of Corrie with a large whisky but the way we were advised of our misfortune; by global email. The only word missing from the missive was "Tough!"  Anyway, it has to be said that I could have visited any of the nearby ATMs and checked but it shouldn't be necessary.  And when I finally got to my desk, Old Ironsides herself couldn't resist a dig when she quipped,
"What's your problem?  You've only got to wait a week...I've got no overtime." Coming from someone who's in a two-Mercedes relationship and off skiing this weekend, I find that a bit of a bitch but decided to keep my beak shut.  So when I continued with my normal duties, I found others in the hospital who couldn't resist rubbing salt into my festering wound.
"What are you doing here Raven?" remarked Botulism.
"My job ... what's it look like?"  Spoken more along the lines of 'What the flock's it got to do with you?'
"In your shoes, most of us wouldn't have bothered to turn up."
"Lucky me I'm old enough to make my own choices."  I'd started to seethe and, about to spontaneously combust, I escaped upstairs to Bedroom 101; my name for a virtually unused set of womens' facilities where a girl can sit and ponder the state of the universe with or without Prof Brian Cox.

Blocking my path was the management [they get everywhere, don't they?] with a deeply concerned frown stretching from temple to temple.
"Are you okay Raven?"  Enough's enough!
"YES"
"Are you sure?  We can help you out with come petty cash ..."  Too late, the cap came off the volcano.

Now don't panic, he still lives and there was no pecking out of eyes like in Hitchcock's The Birds.  Actually, I'm quite proud of myself because anyone else would have got a banging lecture on Torts and his responsibility as an employer but that would've been wasted.  Instead it all came down to one word, quietly spoken. Trust.

Tip of the Blog:  The other night there was a crash from the bathroom and a royal amount of cursing from Alphonse. When he finally descended, he mumbled something along the lines of
"We'd better go to B&Q."
"What? Now?"

"No but in the morning or I'll lose something valuable if I go to the loo in the dark."  On closer inspection, he'd snapped the toilet seat lid in half, exposing a blade-like piece of plastic quite capable of causing an orchidopexy.  Next day, I found a detailed diagram of our requirements and a twenty quid note on top of my handbag, and he'd skipped to work before I could summon my own version of "That Look!" 

Raven