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Scratching an itch
Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 10:34 amI have a horrible feeling that I have pencil marks on the back of my shirt, just between and below the shoulderblades - that bit you can't quite reach with your hands1. The trouble is, as you will doubtless agree, that once the itch appears, it has to be scratched.
Having tried, as decorously and inconspicuously as possible, to reach around and scratch the itch, I resorted to casting around on my desk for implements to do the task, since in my leathered middle-age, I no longer have the requisite elasticity of arm to do it for myself. The coffee spoon is out: continued humidity (though, to be fair, not so much today) has ensured that there is a patina of coffee granules adhering to the bowl on it so that would be a poor idea.
I have tried rulers before, but we only have those useless and over-bendy plastic ones. A good back scratch requires a sturdy wooden ruler of at least 12" length. Sadly they belong to the Dickensian Civil Service and are only found as divisional heirlooms, passed from post-holder to post-holder and jealously guarded across the generations. Dead men's rulers, indeed.
The stapler might work, but visions of me stapling my shirt to my own back and the resultant horrors precluded experimentation in that direction. The hole punch is not quite the right shape.
That left me with a choice of pens or pencils. The cheap biros we are provided with are leakier than No.10 during conference season, so that meant that the trusty pencil was all that was left. By this time, of course, the itch had become intolerable and the priority was to scratch it. Only in that period of mid-scratch semi-relief did it occur to me that the blunt end might be a better choice. Happily I am wearing a grey shirt and the pencil was a simple HB – nothing too soft – so I may have got away with it.
But the worry lurks...
1I used to be able to reach it in days gone by, but the old joints aren't as flexible as they once were.
Having tried, as decorously and inconspicuously as possible, to reach around and scratch the itch, I resorted to casting around on my desk for implements to do the task, since in my leathered middle-age, I no longer have the requisite elasticity of arm to do it for myself. The coffee spoon is out: continued humidity (though, to be fair, not so much today) has ensured that there is a patina of coffee granules adhering to the bowl on it so that would be a poor idea.
I have tried rulers before, but we only have those useless and over-bendy plastic ones. A good back scratch requires a sturdy wooden ruler of at least 12" length. Sadly they belong to the Dickensian Civil Service and are only found as divisional heirlooms, passed from post-holder to post-holder and jealously guarded across the generations. Dead men's rulers, indeed.
The stapler might work, but visions of me stapling my shirt to my own back and the resultant horrors precluded experimentation in that direction. The hole punch is not quite the right shape.
That left me with a choice of pens or pencils. The cheap biros we are provided with are leakier than No.10 during conference season, so that meant that the trusty pencil was all that was left. By this time, of course, the itch had become intolerable and the priority was to scratch it. Only in that period of mid-scratch semi-relief did it occur to me that the blunt end might be a better choice. Happily I am wearing a grey shirt and the pencil was a simple HB – nothing too soft – so I may have got away with it.
But the worry lurks...
1I used to be able to reach it in days gone by, but the old joints aren't as flexible as they once were.
