Cilicia

I hum that S&G Cecilia song as I go about my jardinerie penance but childishly pronounce it Cilicia.

Au sujet d'affaires japonaises, I was lately bending so low over some horticultural horridness I was reminded of a Bainbridge afternoon when I'd agreed to help rearrange some furniture and and generally indoorsy stuff because I reckoned there might be food at the end, of which I was in intermittent need, those being the days of my unemployed incomelessness.

All went well and mein hostess produced nutritious scraps and juices and we sat round looking looked pleased with ourselves.

On a sudden, the bloke vanished and came back with horrid implements of jardinerie. Fixing me a cheery grin, he enquired, "Why don't you grab one of these and help me start work on the rockery?"

I was dumbfounded. Que dire on such occasions? For starters, how about the fact that:

"I'm not actually sure why not, but how about the pathetic excuse that a demi-quaver of a pulse still flickers, a millimetre of morale still clings?

In which case, something fights against conceding that one is not just bankrupt but reduced to the abject poverty of not even having the wherewithal to stave off slipping that final slide down into yardwork.

Why don't I grab? The next 75 reasons can be conveniently filed under Common Sense, sub-section Self-preservation, altho' I've no doubt that Laing and Freud have suitably purple-prosed sections on the subject.

Why not grab? Difficult to say in a family setting with little Tommy and Clarice sitting by, tabula rasas for exactly the intemperate vocab called for in any civil explanation.

Genial laughter.

You cannot phase gardeners because they commune with Nature and are too balanced to condemn the mentally unstable. But honestly, what a cheek.

I mean, why don't I grab that staple fun and nail my privates to his deck? Why not shove some bamboo shoots up under my fingernails? Apply hot coals to my soles, screech chalk down his children's blackboard?

Hey, Bernie, why don't you grab this jar of Marmite and make us all a platter of toasted sarnies?

I know we're all poor as hell and even the cost of an honest Albanian behind a rented 'dozer is prohibitive, but surely there's a 'friendly' enronian accountant out there on our side? I know they're weirdish types - til tax time, that is, when they suddenly become heros - but they can't *all* be green fingered?

There must be some sort of tax wheeze to claw back some funds to pay for the flattening and battening and vanquishing of anything with roots.

Look at it this way:

Equipment: gloves, booties, all those sharp implements.

Unguents and ointments to heal those rashes and cuts

Required reading - and god those gardening scribblers churn 'em out

Chiropracters et co: go on, fake it. Pretend you actually put some zeal into the hateful contortions and one day wake up with an "ache".

Surely, that adds up - week after week, month to month; year to year, God forbid.

Can't that be sort of claimed for under the pretense of ploughing back into *more* such stuff, but on the sly you call a little man who knows the right people and next day, up trundles a Centurion tank with honest yeoman at the helm, vroom vroom, crush stomp flatten ... et voilà! Fait accompli.

Just an idea.