Pardon His Fiddlesticks

Alec spends a lot more time with my mum than I do these days, since he’s often over at my house during the day to use my laptop for his job-searching. They have lunch, trade recipes, go shopping for stuff for his flat, and recently fell asleep together on the couch (DIFFERENT COUCHES OBVIOUSLY, LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR) while watching the Pope’s funeral.

While spending all this time with my mum, Alec naturally tries to moderate the ways in which he expresses himself. Although it would theoretically be possible to explain to my family that in Ireland, an outburst of “FECK!” is actually quite acceptable even in polite company, and really isn’t just a weird Irish way of saying “FUCK!”, after asking Alec to move continents for me I feel somewhat hard-pressed to demand that he also lecture my parents on Irish vernacular swearing.

But after so much restraint, I guess sometimes it’s hard for him to snap back into normal mode even when it’s just him and me. After lunch at his flat on Sunday, he went into the kitchen to pour us the coffee he’d made, only to realize he’d forgotten to plug the coffee-maker in when he switched it on – and yelled “FIDDLESTICKS!”

The rest of the afternoon was difficult for us, as he spent most of it rocking and mewling in a corner.