RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31548, 9 December 1967, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER

It is sad when friends tell you they are leaving Christchurch to settle in Australia, but such partings have to be faced. The least one can do is say to them, come round on Sunday, any time between 11 and 1, having in mind the fact that you and your wife and very small son dine about that time and within an hour you have to go to work. So it is pleasant to have your friends and their two healthy-looking children round for morning coffee. And when it is time to prepare the vegetables for your little one, naturally

your wife has to be excused, because it is very nearly one o’clock. Yet it is not really so terribly pleasant to hear your friend’s wife ask if she can help in the kitchen, for with the remark comes the blinding revelation that your friends think they have been asked for dinner, followed a split second later by a horrid realisation that your wife has made a casserole for two, in a very small dish. It’s one of the few times a woman has ever found much virtue in her husband’s cigarette-smoking habit For this one said he was out of cigarettes

and would just slip across the road to the dairy to buy some. With admirable speed, dexterous footwork, and an unsuspected flair for legerdemain, he contrived to come back with much more than a packet of cigarettes. Within minutes—and in the absence of the friend’s wife a small • casserole had been converted into a substantial vegetable hot-pot, with ice cream and pineapple to follow. The guests enjoyed the meal thoroughly. The host and hostess have resigned their membership of the Sabbath Observance Society.