December 2010
It was a cold wet December evening, the young woman came downstairs having put the over excited children to bed and settled down to making costumes for the forthcoming nativity play at the nursery school. She was glad to have a good stretch of time to concentrate on this job, as her husband was working on overtime that night and was not expected home before 9.30 pm at the earliest.
She had just surrounded herself with all the inevitable clutter of dressmaking when there was a loud knocking at the door. She was not expecting any visitors and opened the front door rather apprehensively but omitting to put the door chain on as always advised when alone in the house. A man she had never seen before stood there looking damp and disgruntled – no greeting – he barked one word at her, ‘Onions.’ He was not carrying anything and certainly did not look like the traditional French onion seller and surely this was not the time of year for harvesting the onions, let alone going round selling them in this wet weather.
All this flashed through her mind as she said a polite, ‘No thank you.’ The man looked irritated and repeated, ‘Onions.’ – ‘I don’t want any onions thank you.’ she replied and went to shut the door. The man stepped forward repeating ‘Onions – onions.’
Really frightened by now she slammed the door in his face and returned shaking and thoroughly unnerved to her sewing, but she could not concentrate, and sat wondering whether she had just had an escaped lunatic on her doorstep. She had no telephone and could not leave the house to talk to anyone else because of the children, besides she wasn’t sure if he was still prowling around outside.
By the time her husband came home she was practically a nervous wreck and tearfully told him about the weird onion seller. At first he seemed as nonplussed as she was, then a light seemed to dawn on his face. He clapped his hand to his forehead and said, ‘Oh hell! I know who it was – I forgot to tell you – I ordered some Christmas drinks from Unwins and they promised to deliver it tonight!’
At first the young woman was so relieved that he had solved the mystery that she couldn’t stop laughing at her mistake, then they realized that amends would have to be made and the husband went out again to sort things out with the off licence manager. He explained how his wife was nervous, how he had forgotten to tell her he had ordered some drink and that she thought the man was selling onions. The manager eventually sure the funny side of it, but was pretty cold at first having had to deal with an irate delivery man, who said he had never been so insulted in his life and refused to take out any more orders that night.
Talk about Christmas cheer; it is difficult to judge who was the most traumatised, the nervous young woman, the rejected irate delivery man, or the overworked shop manager? And all because of one forgetful husband.
(A happy Christmas to one and all)