A place where I'll post up some thoughts and ideas - especially on literature in education, children's literature in general, poetry, reading, writing, teaching and thoughts on current affairs.
Tuesday 18 November 2014
New poem: Washing machine
I went to a washing machine re-fit place. Stacks
of washing machines. It was like washing-machine
castle-walls in there. There was a room at the back.
I walked through to it. On one of the machines it
had a bright pink star. On the star it said, ‘De-shrinker
fitted’. I went over to the guy and said, ‘Excuse me, it
says on one of your machines it’s fitted with a
de-shrinker. What’s a de-shrinker?’
‘If you got something that shrunk, it de-shrinks it.’
‘Takes it back to normal size?’
‘Yup,’ he said.
‘How does it do that?’ I said.
‘I don’t fit them,’ he said, ‘I’m the muscle.’
‘Is it more expensive because it’s got the de-
shrinker on board?’ I said.
‘I’ll have a look,’ he said.
He opened a fat book, ran down a list with his
thumb-nail.
‘Yep, you pay extra for the de-shrinker.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but I’ll take one without.’
‘Please yourself,’ he said, ‘but you don’t want to
be the kind of guy who turns some tasty sweater
into a doll top and then comes running in here
giving me a hard time because you didn’t buy the
one with the de-shrinker.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said, ‘I’ll take one without.’
‘You’re not the type who takes risks, are you?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said, ‘there are pizzas I’ve never tried.’
‘We don’t do pizzas,’ he said.
‘You do washing machines,’ I said.
‘You got it,’ he said.