(The Ongoing?) (and rather exaggerated) Chronicles Of Mr Alfred Muggins : A Morning Of Distractions

     Mr Muggins sat in bed, in his pyjamas and dressing gown, trying to read an online story he had been trying to read for some weeks. He had enjoyed it a lot to start with, and read a lot of it quickly, but now just when he was going to spend a pleasant time reading more of it, and getting to the next ‘page’ in this rather long story, he was interrupted.

    The story involved an alternative scenario world where most of the work was done by women, and the few men who had survived a killer virus which killed most of them by the age of adulthood. The few men who survived were, it seemed to Alfred, very favoured. He even indulged in the fantasy, prompted by what he was reading, that women were willing to share a husband and would pay men to produce babies! This seemed a great fantasy from a male sexual point of view, but he could well imagine that if he had more than one wife there would be too many demands on his time, and even on his money, despite it being supposed to be a world where the women earned the money and the men either directed them or at least had lives of great ease. Knowing his luck, the wives would presumably start pulling him in different directions, and his life of leisure would soon collapse in chaos, and there would be no peace and quiet.

     Anyway, he couldn’t concentrate on reading the story because his wife sat next to him on the bed as she was upstairs when her sister rang on her mobile phone. So she jumped on their bed right next to him to take a very long winded and not too interesting long phone conversation with her sister, which made it very difficult to concentrate on his reading. He soldiered on with his usual resignation, trying to enjoy the wonderful story he was reading.

     The painter and builder who had been doing his wife’s kitchen changes were downstairs, banging away and finishing off jobs, while this was supposed to be his holiday, a few days off work to claim his holiday pay and take a break. He hoped they weren’t going to start charging any more on the bill which he had already had to settle. His wife of course couldn’t afford to pay her half share yet, so he had virtually wiped out half of his savings to pay for the changes, which were hardly essential. But he was married so what could he do about it? At least she was very happy with the work they had been doing, and it was all making her very happy at the moment. Better than having to move house, or have an unhappy wife moaning about things.

     Finally his wife ended the rambling phone conversation and went back downstairs to talk to the painter and builder. So Alfred had a sudden urge to record his feelings and situation. He cast aside the Ipad with the story he was trying to read on it. He just couldn’t concentrate! He started to write a story about his real, but slightly imperfect life. He knew it was not one of his best or most important projects, just ideas for another day, perhaps a little exaggerated. He thought to himself, ‘There’s another story in there! – One day, if I only had the time!’

    Someone said something too loud downstairs, he could hear something from where he was sat on the bed. Alexa, the music computer at the top of the stairs, heard it and thought they were asking for some music. Searching her computer recent memory banks she decided the grandkids might be here and promptly started playing nursery rhymes and children’s christmas music, rather loudly.

     Alfred Muggins didn’t have the energy to jump out of bed, even though it was midday now, and get close enough to Alexa for her to hear him and ask her to switch off. He could try shouting at Alexa from where he was, sat in bed with his Ipad and old phone and notebooks on top of him, but he realised that probably would not work. She probably would not hear him, so he thought he would not bother. He had to let the music run on for a while! He would soon get up and sort Alexa out, but he would have to think what to say to her, and what actual adult music did he actually want to ask her to play?

     He thought to himself, ‘She’s actually a bit like a ‘second wife’, although she can’t make cups of tea or breakfast!’ Although when he thought about that it did occur to him that about 95% of the cups of tea and coffee made in this house were actually made by himself Mr Alfred Muggins. Everybody liked his coffees, and so he made all of them. No one could stir the right amount of coffee and milk in quite so well as he. And as he fed the dogs in the morning he often made the first cup of tea in the morning, and most of the rest of the day.

     Thankfully his real wife, or first wife, came up the stairs and casually told Alexa to switch off, without him having to ask her, so he was saved from the nursery rhymes, and relative silence thankfully returned.