Thursday 18 October 2012

Giving in to desire

I don't know how you demonstrate to yourself that your powers to withstand the pressures of temptation are holding up, but round here, Woman of the Shires cruises by the National Theatre website and says to herself Look at Me! I'm not buying tickets for Timon of Athens!

Nope, no matter how much Woman of the Shires wants to see the fantastic Russell Beale with his must-see turns, she's not going. No matter how cheap the tickets! No matter how much she yearns to take off the pinny and dress up a bit!

Like all Women of the Shires, she is surrounded by economic imperatives. Ipso facto she is broke. These are challenging times. Those children need shoes! Dependent on the husband's income, earning sod all on her own account, soon she will be garbing herself in mended worsted and her grandmother's hand-me-down mop. That shed-load of non-existent money in the bank is getting so bad what with the consistent input/output imbalance, it is now likely that Mr Barclay will come calling with a machine gun and a death threat after the bailiff is discovered at the foot of the garden with an axe in his head.

Thus, forced by circumstance, she must know herself how good and wise and careful she is being! She cruises past the National Theatre website AGAIN where she can know for sure that she is not buying tickets and not succumbing to desire!

Now she is not only economically wise, she is somehow strangely moral! See her glow! She is practically glowing with economic virtue, morality, and mended mops.

But then she thinks, fuckit. How many tickets? Perfect.


(As a study of journey to ruin, probably strangely appropriate.)

1 comment:

Irene said...

I do that all the time myself. It's the road to ruin but at least it's one with a view.