The Pen is Mightier than the Felt-tip

At the end of a long and very dull relationship, there are times when you have to see each other again, and sign things; if only to remind you that you are now of sound mind and judgement but you weren’t always. It can also make you muse that it would be far easier and far less expensive to take a hit out on them than to wait for them endlessly to pass a piece of paper back and forward to an overpaid lawyer, but if anything happens to him, you didn’t hear it from me.

This week is the week of my anniversary, but instead of ruminating on it and becoming all philosophical, three small things happened that made me endlessly smile to myself with glee.

1) I did a fabulous impersonation of a divorce attorney. I’m well known for my bull-shitting skills, having once convinced someone that I was a registered midget (I’m very small, but there isn’t a midget register as far as I know) and also made a whole group of kids believe I was the niece of a very famous and very famous African-American basketball player. (Try it; just say “Are you racist? Are you saying I can’t be? Is it because I’m white?” enough times and they’ll fall over themselves enough to believe anything).

I’ve been waiting for months for my ex to sign divorce papers. I’m representing myself because he left me in a lot of debt, but there really isn’t anything I can’t do that someone on hundreds of pounds an hour can’t. (That includes the things he paid for.) I couldn’t let another anniversary go by without a signature finally, so I put on my best Crown Court voice, to him and to his law firm. I told him and them he’d signed a piece of paper agreeing to pay me money if he delayed and I had to pay extra expenses and within an hour it was done. Registered midgets of the world unite!

2) I convinced him to give his best friend the worst wedding present in the world. For some reason best known to the foolish best friend, my ex is best man. Well, they shared prostitutes, so I’m guessing it should be a cause for celebration for them both that another woman has been hauled in to be a foil for their shenanigans. My ex fancies himself as a bit of an artist, but he’s so bad he once put a picture up that he’d painted by numbers in our hall and our neighbours kept congratulating our three year old nephew on his lovely work. I kid you not. His biggest passion is graffiti art, which he’s particularly terrible at.

He asked me, as I tried to throw the terrible tea out of his high rise flat window (and ignore the screams from below) what he should get them. “Why not get them something personal?” I suggested, “You’re such a great artist, I’d represent them both on a giant canvas, in graffiti. I can get a canvas from work and you’ve got the talent. Is their front room wall big enough?” He’s planning it tonight. Slam dunk.

3) He asked me what I’d been doing recently. When I told him I’d been pursuing my writing again, he laughed. It didn’t cause much consternation with me, I was watching him sketch two loveless people in the semi-nude – or I think that’s what it was – and I’m pretty confident I can write better than he can draw.

“If I was a writer,” he offered, “I’d write something really exciting. I’d write something about someone and have something really exciting happen to them.” He was done. He picked up his felt-tips (again, I kid you not. Banksy, eat your heart out.)

“Thanks for that,” I replied, without a hint of irony, “I’ll get that down quickly before Spielberg gets wind of it.”
So I did. I wrote something about someone. And I kept writing. The pen is definitely mightier than the felt-tip.