Slippery slope

The monkey slept* on my bed on Monday night. Anyway, the thing that concerned me about this was not that the monkey has long arms that might wander but that I wonder if it could be the start of a slippery slope. You start with one small monkey and then soon you add a big floppy eared rabbit, then it’s a replica dog, a large panda and a collection of stuffed cats. “Just one more…” you think “It can’t do any harm…” Before long you turn into one of those people whose bedroom has transformed from a sophisticated and enticing boudoir to one that would be equally suited to a five-year old. A girl has a reputation to maintain and I don’t think I want mine to be one that involves lots of stuffed animals, so the monkey is going to have to find a new resting place at night.

Sometimes I also worry that if I don’t monitor what I wear that I will suddenly start buying jumpers with large cartoon animals on the front or look at clothes in the shops and think “Ooh yes, I’ll buy that. That’s really ‘fun’.” Neither cartoon animals or ‘fun’ should be part of the criteria when purchasing clothing - unless you are a children’s entertainer or some such occupation, in which case it might be acceptable during working hours but should never be worn in one’s spare time. I need to keep a check on that one.

The other undesirable alternative is wearing clothes because they’re “comfortable”. You start by wandering outside in a tracksuit (or, perhaps even worse, some tight fitting lycra) that shouldn’t even be worn in a gym, let alone in front of poor unsuspecting people on the street. You then move on to wearing elasticated trousers and so much polyester that you might actually catch fire if you walk too fast. Then, finally, one morning you get out of bed and decide that you don’t need to change out of your animal print pyjamas in order to go and buy the paper and a pint of milk - and at that moment you realise your life has gone into such a decline that you will indeed be dieing alone…

The monkey is *definitely* finding a new place to sleep tonight.

*Hmm… Scarily, I’m making it sound like the monkey is actually alive. Let’s brush over that shall we…