The highest form of blogging

In this blog post, I will not do at least two things*.

1. I will not have my novel-in-progress assessed by a feline editor.
2. I will not fall backwards off anything.

It's true, consultation is the wryest form of cattery, and propellation the spryest form of battery. But by not doing at least both of these two things, it will become obvious that I am not copying anyone's comedy stylings.

Why yes, I did give up caffeine two months ago. What of it? It wasn't agreeing with me. And that awkward moment in the staff toilets was pure coincidence. This music is Bulgarian, by the way, not Georgian. What next? Am I still allowed to make sandwiches and drink arbitrarily feminised varieties of tea? Why am I defending myself to you anyway? You're a cat, and touching my stuff with your bum doesn't constitute editing.

I stop writing blog posts to my cat in order to have a shower. I’ve just taken my pyjamas off when there’s a knock at the door. It’s not the tv repair man because he came yesterday, eventually. So it’s going to be Paul, having forgotten his keys. I reach for a modesty-towel from the cupboard, and remember they’re all in the tumble drier because we only own three towels and usually that’s four towels too few for my washing regime.

The venetian blinds are still shut in the lounge. I trot naked to the front door, execute an elegant triple-step to avoid a particularly vicious-looking block of Duplo and impale my instep on a small plastic goat that I swear wasn’t there a second ago. I notify the plastic goat that it is, in fact, an arsehole, and wrench open the front door to give Paul his keys.

It’s the postman. He looks bored.

I slam the door shut again and shout “JUST A MINUTE!”

The only appropriately voluminous garment within reach is an embroidered kimono that I’m selling for my aunt on eBay. I shove my arms into the sleeves and wrap it around my body.

I open the front door again. The postman still looks bored.

“Sorry,” I say, “I was thinking about my husband. I mean, I thought you were my husband.”

"Sign at the top, please."

I pause, pen above paper. I have forgotten how to do my signature. I scrawl something with a few too many double-consonants in it across the form, and take my package. The postman fades out onto the footpath.

The package is puffy and soft, and I wonder what I ordered online the last time I was pre-menstrual and watching Dead Poets Society at 2am. I plonk down on the floor in my beautifully stitched kimono and strip off the wrapping.

It’s a set of towels.

My cat pauses mid arse-lick in the cello position and stares calmly at me.

"Stop it. This is fine," I say. "You can't copy an indirect presentation of a contradiction between an action or expression and the context in which it occurs. Irony is a widely used device.”

My cat finishes his editorial ablutions and jumps down from the desk. He sniffs the pile of new towels on the floor and then makes a pointed attempt to sit down on my bare foot. Despite his demonstrated high standards of anal hygiene, I'm not keen to risk having my bare toes critiqued.

So I stand up, take a step back onto a well-placed Matchbox car, perform a devastating somersault over the coffee table, and resolve to seriously reconsider the introduction to this post.

*My very funny friend Mat Larkin has a very funny blog. Parts of this post may or may not be directly related or stolen from his writing in the past, present and future.