No such thing as a free lunch

It may be true that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but there is currently the offer of a free breakfast. At a local building supplies store, if you place an order before nine and it’s worth more than thirty quid, they’ll give you a free breakfast.

 ‘So, you’d drive all the way into town on an empty stomach so that you could get a ‘free’ breakfast by spending thirty pounds which you could then enjoy standing in the rain with a bunch of builders all with their bottoms showing over the tops of their trousers? Cooked, no doubt, by a fat, tattooed man who has probably not washed his hands in some time.’

I noticed the van that provided the free breakfast parked alongside the store entrance as I walked out carrying some wood for a gardening project. I could see the sizzling bacon, sausages, eggs. I love the smell of cholesterol in the morning – smells like…angina.
Sadly, I’d already breakfasted on porridge and toast; a pretty poor substitute, and no match for a plate loaded with fried goodies. I packed my car with the planks and nails, and sadly climbed in. I’d have to make sure that I returned before nine a.m. when I next needed some DIY stuff.
When I got back to Hornblotton, I told my wife that you could get this free breakfast. She looked at me in silence.
‘But you’ve already had breakfast,’ she said.
‘Yes, but next time, I would leave before breakfast – you know – to get my monies-worth,’ I explained.
‘So, you’d drive all the way into town on an empty stomach so that you could get a ‘free’ breakfast by spending thirty pounds which you could then enjoy standing in the rain with a bunch of builders all with their bottoms showing over the tops of their trousers? Cooked, no doubt, by a fat, tattooed man who has probably not washed his hands in some time.’
‘Well, now that you explain it like that it sounds daft. What I should do is get up early and have a small, early breakfast here, and then go into town to arrive at, say, eight forty-five. Then I’d have enough time to get my stuff and still have an appetite for that freebie.’
‘Whatever you think, darling,’ she smiled.
I wandered off to build the raised beds in the garden for next year’s vegetables. It was pouring with rain. When I came back indoors some hours later, covered from head to toe in thick, glutinous mud, and sopping wet, my wife was just leaving the house.
‘I’m off to the hair-dressers in Cary, darling. When you’ve hosed yourself down, remember to stick that casserole in the Aga,’ she said.
‘Why are you going now? I thought your appointment was at three?’
‘It is,’ she explained, ‘but they have a loyalty thing running at the moment. If you get your hair done three times, and buy some beauty products, they’ll give you a free manicure.’
I looked down at my blistered hands with their filthy, broken nails. I looked at my wife’s immaculate hands, with their long, perfect nails.
‘But your nails are fine, darling. Are the nail clippers broken? Couldn’t you find them?’ I asked.
‘No, they’re not broken – and they’re where you left them, on the floor behind the toilet, after you cut your toe-nails last night. Anyway, that’s not the point; this is just too good an offer to pass up.’
I nodded as she walked to the car.

'If you get your hair done three times, and buy some beauty products, they’ll give you a free manicure.’ I looked down at my blistered hands with their filthy, broken nails. I looked at my wife’s immaculate hands, with their long, perfect nails. ‘But your nails are fine, darling. Are the nail clippers broken?

‘Make sure the girl who does it washes her hands first,’ I shouted at the departing vehicle.
Standing on the patio, I could see I didn’t have enough timber to complete the raised beds project. I’d now be obliged to go back to the builders’ merchants in Yeovil. I wonder if I could persuade them to let me have a free lunch after all?