The difference between men and women

The other day I stripped the gone-on-too-long runner beans plants, and podded the stringy bastards. I did this whilst watching the mighty Tottenham struggle to a win over Fulham. During the match one of Mrs IG's friends popped in with her other half. Okay, I am usually an anti-social bugger, but having to endure a pair of whinging divots during football is more than a man should have to bear. However, it was worse. They brought their idiot child with them.

As Mrs IG and Mrs Divot-Head talked about shoes or some such other vital topic, Mr Divot-Head decided to ask me what I was doing.

He said, "What are you doing?"

You see; I don't make this shit up.

I replied, somewhat venomously, "I'm trying to watch the football."

"What are those things?" He pointed to the pile of beans on the table.

"Monkey glands."

"No, really, what are they?"

"If I tell you, will you piss off?"

At this point his daughter walked up, looked at the pile beans, and asked, "What are they?"

I'll say one thing; nosiness obviously thrives in his murky gene pool.

"Well, you know when you go out on your own, your Mum tells you not to talk to strangers? Well, those strangers are child molesters, who want to take you away to an old disused warehouse and fiddle with you before they murder you. Whenever a child molester comes and annoys me when I'm watching football, I snip open his ballsack and rip his testicles out."

She thought for a moment, and then asked, "What are testicles?"

Mrs Divot-Head overheard this, and broke off the urgent discussion about West End musicals to interupt.

"What did you say, darling?"

"What are testicles?"

"Pardon?"

I interjected. "I was just telling her that these are child molesters' testicles."

Mrs Divot-Head glanced at the beans, and said, "No they're not, darling, they're fairys' eggs."

Now, that's the difference between men and women. Whilst we both lied to an impressionable child, I told her something that made her aware of the perils of life, and her own Mother tried to make her believe that some mythical flying girls are hatched from eggs.

Even funnier was after the Divot-Heads had left, Mrs IG actually asked me if I was saving them for next year's seed. Imagine that; see actually believed I would do something green and which oppossed the grip of multi-national seed corporations. I laughed, and mentioned the word 'cassoulet'.

Saving seed, or a slow braised pot of belly pork, duck legs, bacon and beans?

There's no competition!