My son needed a lift home yesterday evening so we got back to the house together to find Robbie feuding with the cat. Apparently the cat had committed a terrible sin and Robbie was still running through his whole (extensive) range of insults. The cat was less vocal, but he was still winning on points because the looks that he was giving Robbie spoke volumes and it really didn't need to tell us what the cat was thinking at that moment! Both retreated to their respective corners, both still bristling with indignation and we returned to what passes for normality in our house.
I was busy getting on with some writing and trying not to notice that my son was watching total junk on the television and I was only vaguely aware of what was going on in the room. Suddenly everything seemed to go quite and I became aware that a scantily clad Robbie was creeping across the room as if he was stalking prey. Robbie doesn't do anything quietly and he is not so good at stealth either - even when he thinks I don't know I usually do! It was a comical sight, almost like a scene from a cartoon, Robbie creeping across the room in slow motion stalking the cat. Apparently the cat had spotted Robbie's unattended (and empty) plate on the table and had headed in that direction to take a look. Robbie and the cat met at the table and some complicated footwork followed; as I watched Robbie it looked like a cross between a football tackle and a Cossack dance. The next thing I knew he was holding the cat in the air and telling him that he was a thieving fatherless feline. What the cat said doesn't bear repeating, he may not have any teeth but there is nothing wrong with his claws and Robbie was pushing his luck. He put the cat down and it beat a hasty retreat to the relative sanity of the hall.
I think Robbie had a lucky escape this time, but that better be the end of it because I have no intention of taking him to casualty and explaining to the doctor that he got injured because he was arguing with the cat in his underwear!
I have written before about my elderly mobile phone, it is nine year old and still going strong - well to be totally honest it isn't exactly going strong, but it does still work. I am waiting to inherit my daughter's backberry she has just got an iphone and has kindly offered mum her old phone. Anyway my present phone works well enough to cope with a few texts every day, mostly texts from Robbie. I still get teased my texts, my son looks at me shakes his head and says "Mother, you are the only person in the world who writes a text in whole sentences with punctuation!". It seems that I can't win because Robbie moans at me for using templates and tells me to make my texts more personal, but this post is not really about my writing style, it is about Robbie's texts.
Robbie can be very persuasive especially when he wants to convince me that I want to get up before the birds on as Saturday morning and spend the whole day travelling on trains. I got one of those kind of persuasive texts from him one day last week, a subtle blend of flattery, temptation and pleading because he wanted me to play trains with him on Saturday. Te odd thing was that the final word of the text "nerd" was rather insulting and not in the 'Uriah Heep' style of the rest of the text. I responded with "Did you call me a nerd" and there was rather a long silence before I go a rather embarrassed response. Apparently he thought he was sending an emoticon, but because my phone is like me (a bit behind the times) it just named the emoticon rather than creating a winking face or whatever it was. I have warned Robbie to be careful who he sends these things to, otherwise his texts could contain unexpected insults!
