Three a penny

Is Max a rare specimen or are there other blokes like him out there? It's been bugging me for a while...

Let me see... I suppose there's Tim, Max's brother. Came for dinner the other day, his bike helmet under one armpit, a bottle of rose under the other. I'm very partial to the pink stuff (you name it and if it's pink, I've probably drunk it) but it must be chilled and it must be good. None of that Zinfandel rubbish. Wiping Tim's sweat off it on the way to the fridge, I eyed the dodgy label suspiciously... But, to my surprise, it was actually rather nice. Tim, very chuffed with himself, said he got it at his local offie, for the grand price of £2.99. Can you even get a bottle for less than three quid?? Apparently, Tim can.

Or Dan, Max's best friend. Loaded but always used to smoke MY cigarettes. Cured that, though, when I proffered him a rollie once (bought if off the local bum especially for the occasion). Spitting and sputtering, Dan popped out to get a packet of Marlboro Lights quicker than I could say "Gotcha!" Never pinched my fags again.

Finally, take George, a business bod and an IT whiz-kid with IQ off the Mensa scale (so, again, not short of a few pennies...) George has canned soup for dinner three times a week, of the 39p per can variety. Out of choice. He's got a wife. Wife doesn't work. Wife can cook.

I could go on - they are three a penny all around me. Rather comforting, that is.

Off to see the wizard...

I sent Max food shopping today, alone. Now, I don't normally do this. Even with a carefully scripted shopping list, he ignores the directives and comes back with offers (at best) or stuff dangerously close to their sell-by date (at worst). The wrong side of their sell-by date, I hasten to add. Also, what he would call non-essential stuff is often sold out. Or so he claims.

But I was busy today, trying to earn a few pennies, so off he went, all on his lonesome.

Two hours later he was back, looking somewhat sheepish. And guilty as hell. Apparently, they had sold out of my favourite cherry beer. And that goats cheese I like was discontinued. And I can make my own ear buds with some cocktail sticks and the cotton wool that has been lingering in the bathroom cupboard since time immemorial.

But, oh triumph!, he got us a pack of four white giant burger baps, at half the price of the brown bread I would usually get.

We don't do burgers. We don't do white bread (we are quite health conscious... or snobs... call it what you want). Baps - these we don't do at all.

Now he's dug out my mother's old mincer so I can whiz up homemade burgers with the old hunk of beef he also bought (yes, it was on offer and cheaper than the ready made mince...).

Off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Mince. I hear he is a whiz of a wiz, if ever a wiz there was... This witch will lose her fingers tonight...

Or, shall I tell him to take a whiz?