Like many men, I am fairly emotionally, er, what's the word? Inarticulate. (Thanks to my wife for that)
In today's perplexing world, being good at football, or boxing, seems to count for nothing. So i'm often totally out of my depth in social situations.
Take a scary incident that happened at the cinema yesterday. They were showing Taxi Driver, which I've only seen 29 times. So I still haven't memorised every line of dialogue. It's every hard at the start of the film, when your mind isn't tuned in to the Noo Yoik ear-ksent. (That's accent, you goddamn schmuck!)
So, you have to listen very hard. But luckily, I had the cinema to myself. Well, I did. Suddenly, this behemoth burst through the doors. She had a bucket of pop corn in one hand, and a bucket of coke and ice in the other. Over her shoulder, she had a gargantuan handbag, which seemed to contain a bag of sand.
My heart sank as she chose the row behind me. But when she plonked herself noisily behind me, I was forced to speak up.
"Tut", I said.
It didn't even affect her. My remark bounced off her, like a bullet on an alien spacecraft. She obviously had the hide of a rhinocerous. And the arse to match.
I made my excuses to myself, and settled down to swallow my self loathing and enjoy the film.
Before Robert De Niro had even walked into the garage, she'd come to the end of her bucket of coke. I know this, because it made a gurgling nose, like a bath emptying, which completely drowned out the first line of dialogue. "Harry answer that"
The next significant line "So, what is it Travis?!" was inaudible too. This time it was the noice of her rumaging around the pop corn bucket.
By the time we reached the stage where Travis meets Betsy, she was onto the sweets. Travis was writing his diary: "She appeared like an angle, in all this mess, they cannot touch her.. They....... cannot..........touch........" and I didn't hear the rest, because there appeared to be a firework display going on behind me. I turned round, and this terrifying monstress was unwrapping a firecracker. The fireworks went on for hours. I counted forty sweets were noisily unwrapped, following a period of noisy searches. She seemed to have to eat the sweets in a particular order.
Next comes the poignant scene where the socially clumsy Travis has a disastrous date with Betsy. Only I didn't hear it, because the fiend in female form was on her mobile, to Darren.
"This film's rabbish Darren," she said, "When's the action going to start?"
That was it. I'm sorry, but I lost my temper completely. I thumped up the stairs, crashed the doors into the lobby, and stormed up to Carla, who I assume was the manageress. i waited until she got off the phone, and finished her crossword, then gave her a piece of my mind.
"Oh," she laughed. "it sounds like you've met Marge. Sorry, there's not much we can do," she said.
Blimey, I thought, who trains these people, Hendon Police College?
"The problem is, Marge died ten years ago to this day," she said. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I noticed the nipples stiffened underneath Carla's blouse.
How. Did. She. Die? I heard myself stammering. As usual, a lady's delightful bouncing globes had completely mesmerised me.
"I shot her. Then turned the gun on myself."
These two ghostly women were polar opposites. They show the extremes of greatness, and evil, of which the superior sex is capable.
Carla, the cinema manageress, did not die in vain. She is a heroine. And I am building a shrine to her, to remind us all that women are sacred.
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