Butterflies

on Mar 24 in Random tagged by Chris Wakling

When a person you don’t know comes to your door you have to act the right way, which means stand up straight and look at them, and you have to say the right thing, which is hello can I help, but there are two things about that. The first is that it’s incredibly hard to say things to somebody you don’t know while standing up straight and looking at them in the eye, because you always actually want to say nothing and go away. And the second thing is that it is even harder to speak to them normally if they have a knitted flightless butterfly stuck on them, and lips which are a quite gentle pink, like the clematis, because then it’s impossible not to get distracted and start thinking of more interesting things instead, like hey that butterfly must be incredibly disappointed because there’s no way at all that it’s ever going to flap up high enough to get at the nectar in that clematis lip with its probosc-thing. Actually there are three things about saying hello how can I help to strange adults, not just two, I was wrong. The third thing that makes it hard or even pointless is that you know what they’re going to say back to you anyway. They’re going to say can you fetch your Mum or Dad please, or something similar, and that is exactly what this woman with the butterfly goes and says.

––Hello. Is Mum or Dad in?
––Yes.