THE RED-HEADED JEST

Based on a rather feeble joke....

“Ginger” Hepplethwaite was annoyed.

“I'm annoyed,” he muttered at Darlene, his beloved and the apple of his eye for the past few weeks.

“What's eating you this time?” she asked, already used to his bouts of annoyance.

“It's what that cow said about red hair on the telly,” he replied. “Anyone would think there was something wrong with red hair! Folks are always poking fun at it.”

“I think it's lovely,” she cooed. Time and patience had taught her that cooing was always a good thing. It helped soothe him and she could tell from signs in his trouser region that the tone of her voice excited him in more ways than one.

“What is?” he asked, calming down.

“Red hair. Ginger hair. Lovely hair, like yours.” Her cooing was unbelievably cathartic.

“Then why did she poke fun at it?” he asked. “The cow,” he added.

“It was a comedy sketch. She said it as a joke. Maybe it was in poor taste if you happen to be red-haired, but for everyone else it raised a smirk.”

“I thought it stupid.” His annoyance was slowly morphing into a sulk, and she knew how to deal with that too. Cooing wouldn't stop him sulking. She'd have to be more physical than that. So she reached out and rubbed his hand lightly.

“I laughed,” she said, and reached out and moved her hand to his left shoulder where she knew he had one of his many sensitive zones. “Just be grateful that you're not the butt of more offensive jokes,” she added.

“That cow couldn't have been much more offensive,” he complained, enjoying the shoulder rub and wondering if it was too soon to touch her more than adequate bosom. The trouble with sulking is I'm never quite sure when it's over, he thought selfishly.

“What if he made a joke about short-sighted men wearing pebble-lensed glasses, like Mr MaGoo?” she asked. “Wouldn't that be worse? I mean, take a lumberjack who's been staggering into trees all day because he can't see them properly, and so he's got all bruised and battered and really, really fed up. And then some comic comes along and makes millions of people laugh at his plight … that would be offensive to him, wouldn't it, yet it happens. Mr Magoo is only a cartoon that we're supposed to laugh at after all. But what if you were that short sighted? I'd bet you'd find it worse than having someone gently mocking people with ginger hair!”

He was somewhat mollified. “I suppose so,” he said, reluctantly.

“So let's hear no more about you being annoyed at the comedienne on the telly,” she said. “Are you ready for bed?”

“Are you staying?”

“I thought I lived here!”

“With a bloke with red hair?”

“That's what I chose.”

“And you're not going to run into the streets screaming every time I sneak to the toilet?”

“Why should I?”

“Ginger pubes. You might find ginger pubes something to scream at.”

“Now you're being silly. Wear pyjamas if you don't want to flash your pubes.”

“Maybe I am being silly, but I've earned the right, living with my condition all my life. And I never wear pyjamas. You know that.”

“What condition?”

“Gingerness.”

“So you're being ultra-silly, then. I don't get upset at all the blonde jokes going around �" and there are more people mocking blondes than mock red-heads!”

“I've never heard them!”

“Oh yes you have. Only yesterday there was that near-accident down the road and the driver of the car that almost hit the blonde woman when she stepped into the road opened his window and bawled at her, I bet you don't dye your hair...”

“So what? That was pure wit!”

“I've heard it more times than I've had sex, so it wasn't spontaneous wit at all!”

“Maybe the reputation's been earned, then...”

“The driver implied that she's thick because she's got blonde hair. And I happen to know her, and she's not.”

“Then why did she step into the road?”

“Because she's human and let her mind wander for a moment.”

“Probably short-sighted as well,” scowled Ginger, needing to get in the last word.

“Ha ha,” she muttered. “Just admit that it doesn't matter what colour your hair is and that it's just a quirk of nature.”

“Some quirk. My dad had red hair too, and got shot.”

She paled. “What do you mean, got shot?”

“He was in the army, in one of them wars in the Middle East and what with his red hair he stood out like a sore thumb, and got shot.”

“No he didn't!”

“He might have. He was wounded, anyway.”

“Yes. I know he was. And by all accounts it was his pride that took the bullet!”

“There's no need to poke fun at my dad!”

“He got wounded by a stray biscuit in the Officer's Mess. Everyone knows that. It was even on Facebook.”

“That's all you know.”

“It isn't, then.” She reached out and took his hand gently in her own. “I know all about that biscuit,” she whispered.

“Don't say it...”

“It was … it was … a ginger nut. Mmmmm.”