Every so often I come across something I have written which I have so completely forgotten about I have to reread just to find out what it’s about. This is something I’d written two years ago:
Corner
You don’t see me, but here I am. Sometimes you look straight at me and you still don’t see me. Here I sit in my corner, and I watch you lot bustling about and I think what a cheery crew you are. Of course I try and do my bit, I try and be helpful, I put things away for you and then I hear you going on, ‘why is the peanut butter in the fridge?’ ‘Well, I didn’t put it there!’ ‘Well, someone did!’ Yes that someone was me. ‘I told you to put it away!’ and it got put away, so what really is the fuss about? Sometimes when you can’t find something I think to myself, why on earth don’t you look on the mantelpiece? And then at last you say ‘It’s on the mantelpiece! What on earth is it doing there?’ I put it there so you’d find it of course!
I heard you say ‘Look at all this dust!’ You sounded amazed and surprised; well I was amazed and surprised, what’s the big deal with dust? I guessed you must like it, so I collected some more and left it in an unexpected place, as a bit of a joke and to be even more of a surprise. I could tell you were pleased, because you said ‘My goodness! All this dust! Good grief!” After that, when I remembered I’d gather a load and I’d try and think of different places to leave it, places you wouldn’t expect, and you always made some remark about it. There was the great time, when more by luck than judgment, I’d got a load and ran out of places to put it, so just stuffed it in a cupboard in the spare room. You and one of the others went in and when you opened the cupboard and were virtually enveloped in a cloud of it and began sneezing like mad, the other one fell about laughing at you! What fun!
I confess, I do have a bit of a problem with socks. I’m not sure if I’m colour blind or what, or if I get confused with vertical and horizontal stripes, but sometimes when I put them together they don’t exactly match then you have a whole lot more of exclaiming. I must say, you do exclaim a lot. Sometimes I’m sitting in my corner and you’re reading a newspaper or listening to the news and you really do have a lot to say, and say it quite forcefully. Going back to socks, I do think you’re slightly ungrateful; any odd socks I come across, I don’t just leave them there under the bed or in the corner of the bathroom or on the stairs where you dropped it taking it down to the washing machine, I pick them up for you and put them in the laundry basket. Then you say (exclaim actually) what are all these odd socks doing in here! I thought I’d taken all the laundry downstairs, now they’ll have to go in the next wash! By the time you do the next wash I’ve very kindly put other odd socks I’ve found in there too. They don’t all belong to you, obviously, but instead of being relieved the missing socks are now found you are actually on the verge of moaning about them… why I don’t understand at all.
I’m not complaining about you, of course, it’s rather endearing the way you’re forever being surprised about things you’ve misplaced turning up, and the way the others are “blamed” for it – they’re always saying don’t blame me, I didn’t lose it, put it there, not put it there’ and then you say ‘oh so if you didn’t who did? I expect it is the boggart!’ And I have a chuckle and settle myself in my corner sitting on the pile of odd socks, hankies, keys, buttons, important letters, and even the odd pair of spectacles!
Lois Elsden 
Gosh
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