Treatment Room 4 revisited

Having found myself once again in Treatment Room 4 on Thursday afternoon, and having but lately been at the receiving end of some not-entirely-subtle complaints from a certain Mr Larkin that he hasn't been mentioned in the blog recently, and that readers might be inferring from that fact that he is no longer my Number One Pop Of Choice, I believe the time has come to expose his vilest torment to date to the wider world. (Well, to the three women and a cat who read this blog, at any rate.)







Also, Hazel left me for so long on Thursday, and the hip I was lying on was eventually so excruciatingly painful, that I attempted to distract myself by taking photographs of The Scary Machine and The Scary Poster. Please forgive lack of symmetry: I was lying on my side and holding the phone out at a decidedly tricky angle.







Anyhoo, regular readers may recall that Pop thinks nothing would be funnier than that he buy me a colonic irrigation treatment as a surprise. This is because he is a Very Bad Man.






One day recently, in Smug McSmug mode, I foolishly opined in his hearing that I was in no real danger of a surprise rectal invasion because he couldn't possibly know the address of the clinic.





Imagine, then, my horror when he revealed that he has the clinic's website saved as a favourite.





How can this be?


Pop is as tricksy as a very tricksy thing, is how. Should you have a burning desire to improve your own detective skills, there may be useful lessons for you in what follows:-








One Monday afternoon, in the not-too-distant past, I phoned Pop to pass the time while I was sitting in the bus shelter behind Sergeant Pepper's Bistro and waiting for my bus home. I have really only the vaguest recollection of having muttered in passing something to the effect that there's an 86 bus every couple of minutes, but that the 86 is of no use to me whatsoever. Careless talk costs lives, though....





That one, casual, off-hand remark was - I learned later - all it took to set Pop on course to detect the whereabouts of the clinic. His first stop was the Merseytravel website from which he was able to glean vital information about the route of the Number 86 bus. Next, he applied himself to the task of establishing which acupuncturists and practitioners of colonic irrigation ply their trade along said bus route. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, apparently.





More than a little flustered by the news that I had been successfully stalked by my own gentleman-friend, I visited the site myself. And, lo! Yes, they do have a facility for the online purchase of gift vouchers for any of the treatments offered at the clinic!





But I still had one remaining ace up my sleeve. (Or so I thought.)





"You can't buy me a set of colonic irrigation treatments", I said, "because there's a four-page form which has to be completed by the patient before treatment can begin". (I may also have said, "Ha!" at this point. Because I Never Learn.)








"The form? Oh, I'll forge that", he replied.

The Editor