Preeeeeeciouuuuussss....!

When we were newly married, my dearly beloved wife had a special thing she used to do to me - y'know, as you do when you're newly married and the romance is still fresh and everything is pink and fluffy (and no, that's not a euphemism!).

She used to wait till I was drifting off to sleep, snuggle up to me, spoon style, pressing herself to my back, and reach one arm around my vast, flabby belly. She's nuzzle her lips against my ear. Then, in a soft and sibilant whisper, she'd say one word.

"Preeeeeeeecioussssssss!"

And I'd leap out of the bed and grab the nearest implement of death and destruction and start swinging away. That's why we had to move the toolbox out of my side of the bed - cos a 20 stone, half-asleep, slightly demented Welshman blindly swinging a rubber mallet around in the middle of the night's no joke to anyone, let me tell you. Mind you, I'm not sure my alternatives were better - I've zapped her with a hair dryer before now. The time I picked up the indoor airer and start waving it about like a kendo staff was a particularly low point...it happened to have a load of bras hanging on it at the time, so I looked like some sort of perverted version of Little John, trying to kick the crap out of Robin Hood.

The reason for these extreme reactions is that I have a thing about Gollum.
Gollum, for the 7 people left on the planet who haven't at least seen the movies, is a scrawny little demented ex-Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, who regards the One Ring that rules them all as his "Precious", and reacts violently towards anyone who tries to take it away from him.

To be strictly honest, I don't have a thing about Gollum. I have a thing about anything that looks harmless, that then turns out to be catastrophically dangerous - particularly if it has sharp teeth. Those little devil-baby aliens on Galaxy Quest? Can't watch 'em. Audrey II in the Little Shop of Horrors? Not keen. Carnivorous plants in science-fiction generally - fuck right off. That scene in Star Wars where they fly into a cave which...turns out not to be a cave - Arrrrrrgh! The most ludicrous example of this phobia that actually works is a scene from 1970s Doctor Who story Genesis of the Daleks where a companion gets a foot trapped in what looks like a rock, but which turns out to be a killer clam! A killer clam, let's not forget, rendered with all the effects panache and budget of the BBC in the 1970s. But I still can't look at it! Gollum was just the latest big-screen, big-budget thing which brought out my squirming reaction, and d, bless her, never tired of seeing me jump out of bed like a half-stoned Jedi, waving bits of furniture around to ward him off.

Anyway, this particular story is unique to Gollum, because Gollum had a purpose. He had a possession, that he absolutely didn't want to give up. He had his "Precious".

And now I have miiiiiiiiiine!

I went to Boots the chemist today because - as the more vampirically minded will have noticed, I haven't been posting blood sugar levels for about a week. I'd run out of testing strips, and the last time I went to the doctors, they'd left them off my prescription, so I had to go back. Finally went in to pick them up today, so normal blood-testing routine will be restored tomorrow.

"Don't s'pose there's any Zenical in?" I asked, hopelessly. There's never any Zenical in, as regular readers have heard me bitch repeatedly.
"Nooooo," said the woman behind the counter. "We've had some in, but they were all allocated, so we're out again."
"Of course," I said. "I've got three prescriptions for the stuff now..."
"Have you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
"Yeah," I said...
""'Old on," she said, and went away to the back of the dispensary for a good old fashioned rummage.
"Oh yeah," she said, coming back. "We'd put a box aside for you. Here you go..."
I grabbed the box out of her hands and clutched it to my acquisitive heart.

"Miiiiiiiiine" I either said out loud or whispered in the depths of brain....I can't, with any certainty, say which.
"You're welcome," she said, rather sniffily, and went to serve another customer.
"Preeeeeeciousssss...." my mind sibilated. "No-one's going to take the Precious, not never!" I scurried home before anyone tried and I was forced to eat them, or betray them to a giant fuck-off spider or something.

So tomorrow begins a new one-month course of Zenical. Woohoo. Man the bathrooms, re-apply the wodges, batten down the hatches and let the orange times flow. Thing is, the argument runs (if you'll pardon the expression) that after being on a regime for over a year, the pills do you no good because you'll have learned good dietary habits. Which is all fine and dandy of course but as we all know, I'm no longer being ruled by a rod of bastard-stubbornness, so the chemical cosh will once again be called for to batter me into a kind of self-obedient submission.

We start tomorrow...bwahahahahahaaaa....

In other news - walked 6 miles this morning, but had a somewhat huge lunch of leftover curry and rice, so fairly heavy on the carbs. Tonight, dammit, I bike!