The Tooby Thrill !
I was eleven when an older lady gave me my first adult thrill.It was six in the morning, on a Saturday, in the village shop. Mrs Tooby, a lady well past retirement age, white hair tinged yellow (only on the right) from decades of filtering cigarette smoke. A flat faced, watery eyed Pekingese dog, with a grubby bow in it’s hair, tucked under her left arm, whilst two more scurried around her slippered feet that shuffled out from under a ‘seen better days’ tweed skirt. Squinting through cigarette smoke Mrs Tooby gave me my ‘thrill’ as she handed over a crumpled ten shilling note as payment for my first full week as a paper boy.
The Tooby effect has never left me and over the years I been Toobied several times more, like when I sold an oil painting (first & last). When I got my first wage packet as an indentured letterpress apprentice printer, when I took home four pounds, nine and thruppence. I am not going to translate that into decimal money, if your of an age to know and empathize, join the gang, if your too young …. I hate you.
The Tooby thrill was there again when our very first customer brought our first ark. I recall her as a being a nice lady, I can even recall her name, Mrs H. Cindy however, clearly remembers our first sale as being to a lady who was not nice, was not called Mrs H, was called Mrs P who Cindy reckons was a pain up the bum and was reluctant to part with her money.
On July 12th, 2009 at 11:27 am Said:
I think age and alcohol rearrange the memory.