Warmth Wanted

JV: Hello there Paul, what do you live with?

Paul: Good afternoon James. My wife is very cold blooded. She’s got cold hands, a cold nose, cold feet, and when she hops into bed I’m the complete opposite. I’ve got warm feet, warm hands, and she’s always wanting to nick my warmth. It’s a case of...well I’ll share it a little bit but I don’t want to get freezing cold by her taking all my warmth.

JV: Wow. So she can actually suck the warmth out of you?

Paul: Just about...and I worked hard to get that warmth y’know?

JV: I would have thought the warmth would be constantly replenished. You know, that you’d be a warmth generator.

Paul: Yeah well I feel like I’ve got to do that at times just to balance her coldness. I’ll often put the electric blanket on, just on her side of the bed, to try and warm up that side but that’s still not enough. She’s still wanting my warmth.

JV: Right so it’s the extremities, it’s circulation and these freezing cold hands...they creep around you?

Paul: Yeah they creep around me and it’s like a block of ice coming onto you. Like, her feet are coming out of ugg boots so they’re coming out of a warm boot but she’s just got poor circulation.

JV: Have you tried the onesie?

Paul: What’s a onesie?

JV: It’s basically baby clothes, like when a baby’s just in the one thing with feet all enclosed.

Paul: Yeah?

JV: You can get them in adult sizes now.

Paul: Ah! I might investigate that. I’m happy to investigate anything.

JV: Well the onesie could be the trick there. Otherwise, is it not affectionate?

Paul: Oh it’s affectionate. We cuddle and everything in bed but I usually wait until she’s a little bit warmed up because it’s not all that exciting when you’re touching a block of ice.

We've got you pegged

JV: Natalie, what do you live with?

Natalie:  I live with a husband who hangs the clothes out for me, which is lovely, but he must colour co-ordinate the peg with the item of clothing he is hanging up.

JV: Yes...

Natalie: So much so that when Aldi put out some pegs that were pink and green, he was very excited about that.

*audience laughs*

JV: What had been his solution before if he had to put up pink or green clothes?

Natalie: He’d get close, he’d put up red pegs, green would have blue pegs.

JV: This isn’t uncommon Natalie. The various hanging out clothes habits are the colour coordinating pegs to clothes; there are those who have to put the sheets on the outside, working back to underwear in the middle if they have the hills hoist type line; there are those who can only use the one colour peg, all the pegs have to be red for example. So there are a few who have these issues.

Natalie: He tells me I shouldn't iron clothes... that I spend too much time ironing clothes, but I wonder how much time is spent choosing the right colour peg?

JV: Oh right, yeah... I don’t know, I like to imagine he has like a tool kit that he hangs with the pegs already sorted ready to go.

Natalie: No, he has to search for the peg. Finding the right colour peg takes time.

The Parrot Sketch

JV: What do you live with Linda?

Linda: Well, I live with one of the two partners that I started with.

JV: Sorry say that again?

Linda: I live with one of the two partners that I started with.

JV: One of the two partners that I started with...Gee, I’m intrigued.

Linda: Yeah.

JV: On you go...

Linda: One of them was male...I mean human...and the other is a male parrot.

JV: So you began with a male human and a male parrot?

Linda: yes, and the sort of fed off one another. In the beginning, the male human came with a childish habit of eating corn flakes in the same bowl, with the same spoon, at the same rapid speed, with the same loud crunching and that was just something he had to eat whenever he was hungry.

JV: So that was like all day eating corn flakes? Whenever he was hungry?

Linda: Well usually when I wasn’t there to make food, but I went away and left the parrot and the male together and when I came back the parrot had some new repertoire in his vocabulary.

JV: What sort of things was he saying?

Linda: Well it wasn’t what he was saying. It was a crunch...crunch...crunch.

JV: The sound of crunching corn flakes? So you had your male human on one side with an actual bowl of corn flakes and then a parrot doing an impression of a bowl of corn flakes?

Linda:  Yeah and I thought ‘how did Schmee learn to crunch corn flakes?’ And I looked and him and said ‘you would bring Schmee next to you every time you had corn flakes wouldn’t you?’ and he said ‘yes.’

JV: Yeah.

Linda: That was how it got passed on.

JV: I see.

Linda: That was just one of many.

JV: Um...Can I ask which one remains with you to this day? Parrot or male?

Linda: The parrot is far more faithful.