The Sunday night rule

There is an unwritten law in our house. Sunday nights are free from work. At the end of our weekend, the last thing we want is an invasion of work related stress. The peace and serenity achieved by two days at home can be completely dashed by one simple yet not entirely thought out intrusion.

And this had been such a good weekend. Mirinda entertained herself in the garden for a few hours which is always restful. We watched a good movie on Saturday night (One Day – highly recommended) and had a few episodes of Trial & Retribution for lunch and dinner.

We’ve been catching up with Trial & Retribution over the last few months and are becoming increasingly irritated with the main character. Mike is ghastly. He is gradually approaching the ‘no redeeming features’ realm of TV drama. It’s weird that a thoroughly unlikeable character can be successful as a police inspector. Still, it’s entertaining which is what you want over your ham roll and soup.

And we were happily watching part 2 of series 7 when Mirinda’s little friend announced the arrival of a text. She’d changed the notification sound so, at first, we didn’t know what it was. It’s a bit of an improvement over the old one which reminded me of the intro to a scary moment in a horror film.

It was from Ben. His text suddenly caused Mirinda to go stiff and quiet. It wasn’t good. We tried to concentrate on the TV but the text was obviously preying on her mind. I paused the TV and we discussed the text.

There is one name that will cause this sort of reaction in my wife and he’d mentioned it in the text. The text was a teaser, asking if she knew who’d headhunted this person, the fear being it was her company. As it turned out, it was another company over which they all have an interest, but it had the power to ruin an otherwise perfect weekend.

Mirinda eventually rang him and told him off, explaining the Sunday Night Rule in no uncertain terms. He was sufficiently chastised although he did think it funny. He has a very loud voice on the phone and I could hear his nervous laughter. According to Mirinda he seemed more concerned that he’d upset me!

Anyway, it all turned out all right and he now knows the Sunday Night Rule. Day-z, being a little behind things as usual, then jumped off me and stood on the lounge room floor. Then, like a scene from The Exorcist, she was suddenly overtaken with a fit of projectile vomiting. Mirinda’s first comment was how handy it was we have wooden floors.

Poor Day-z. Her gentle sensibilities had been shattered by the text; her disdain evident in a large pool on the floor. It was so bad, she then sat outside on the path, taking the fresh air in order to settle her tummy.

Both the poodles have a bad habit of drinking the water in the bird bath and Mirinda thinks it was this that turned her tummy (it was all clear liquid, after all) but I’m convinced it was Ben and his text.