Tantrums and turn-ons

I had all this funny stuff I wanted to write tonight. But as usual, events overtake me.

The brothers are clearly in a foul mood with one another. So would I be if I'd spent 24/7 with either one of them for the last three weeks. 12/7 is bad enough. DBrother is dealing with this by going for long rides on the bicycle. OBrother copes with it by sulking when DBrother is not around. They are both jockeying to be my favourite pain-in-the-arse brother-in-law. DBrother clearly thought he was at the top of the pile because he felt we were 'connecting'. Now OBrother thinks he is at the top of the pile because I complimented him on his developing English ("room, small, bed, big, no good, big problem" - I'll explain later) and because I told him that the ancient Greek meaning for his name is 'he who conquers mountains,' which he likes.

If you're wondering why I was googling the origins of his name, it's because there isn't an English version of it, that I'm aware of, and since it's a tricky name for people to repeat and remember I thought we might give him a new temporary one. I could have some mean fun with this if I wanted to, but I will probably just open our book of baby names at the boys' names beginning with 'O', dip my finger in and see what it pulls out. I'd let you know the results but I'm trying to keep this somewhat anonymous in case I get famous. (I had nearly 1500 page views last month, BTW, but that was probably mostly my mum.)

So, what's really got their goat in the last twenty-four hours is the bed situation. They are fuming because Mr Khan had a brand new double delivered today. Two weeks after he promised to bring them two singles. OBrother announced this when he turned up to cook. He said he had tried to explain to Mr Khan why it wasn't any good, using the words I listed above, which I suspect might not have impressed him very much. They keep going on about what a lying bastard Khan is, but he has given them a TV and aerial and has shown us a sky lead they can use if only they can get a sky box from somewhere. And he is hardly obliged to give them new beds.

I put it to the back of my mind until I heard DBrother go out earlier and then come storming back in about twenty minutes later. OH had just got home from work and I understood DBrother to be shouting something along the lines of how ridiculous it was and what a lying bastard Khan was, etc etc. I told OH to put the kids to bed, grabbed my coat and asked DBrother to come round there with me.

I knocked gently on Mr Khan's door and when he opened it, smiled warmly and enquired about the health of his child. He is very bad, he said, with two breaks in his leg and a break in his back. He said he himself is exhausted, taking the other one back and forth from nursery. (Another house-mate told me later that he thinks the story about the child is utter nonsense. Heigh ho.) He went on to say that his own wife is 'a bit stupid in the head' (where else would she be stupid?)(and is that why he thought we'd get on?) and that he had thought to ask my help with the child but realised that I have two children of my own. 'That's right,' I said, 'And three men as well, to look after, which is infinitely worse.' I'm not sure he understood.

I moved the conversation on to the beds. He started getting agitated and slapping his head. I am starting to wonder if this might indicate when he is straying from the truth. Anyway. I had just been up to the bedroom and it does now look like some kind of crappy furniture showroom. The two doubles are centre stage, next to one another. The new one is at least new! Khan claims that he went to speak to OBrother, to ask if he'd be in the house the next day for the beds to be delivered, and that OBrother had shown him one finger by way of a reply and said 'One bed, no two beds.' So Khan cancelled the order, and got a double instead. I think it is highly likely that OBrother did say this, having changed his mind and decided one single would now be better than two and losing the double. I can't see why Khan would go and get a new double for the fun of it. But he might have been making it up. Heck. I don't know and I don't really care. The scenario made me feel a bit like matron negotiating a squabble over tuck. We agreed that the brothers will dismantle the first, old double and put it behind their wardrobe. They will keep the new one, and the old single mattress, until he gets them a new single bed, some time next week. If he does...?

I then moved onto the shower, and engaged the young man living in the next room and who is an electrician in the conversation, and he has agreed to fix it when Khan provides the relevant bits and bobs. He is from Ivory Coast, I think, but mentioned that he has a Greek girlfriend. He seems a really nice bloke. Later, outside, he agreed that Khan is a bit of a nutter but also said that he'd let him sleep on his bedroom floor when he was desperate. He might also have a bit of tiling work for OBrother.

As regards the telly and the one channel it can currently receive, Khan agreed to send his friend's son up to have a look, next time he's round.

Finally, I made the near-fatal mistake of saying that the brothers didn't want to use the kitchen because it wasn't very clean. Khan started to get angry and shouted that he would kick them out. He pulled us in there and DBrother, oblivious to his rage - my God, he doesn't really read body language - starting doing things like rubbing his finger over the surfaces indicating bread crumbs and flour - to prove his point. In fact, someone had very recently had another go at the kitchen and I swear, I could have cooked in there myself. Between us, the man from Ivory Coast, to whom I might refer as MTenant because his name starts with that letter, and I managed to calm Khan down. I lied through my teeth and said DBrother was joking and that he wanted to cook Khan a lovely Greek meal. MTenant joked that he'd like to invite his Greek girlfriend to the meal but he was worried that with their good looks, the brothers might steal her from him. I begged Khan not to kick them out saying that quite frankly I didn't want them in my kitchen any longer and they needed to stand on their own two feet. MTenant said that he and Khan needed to teach the brothers English or they wouldn't ever be able to stand on their own two feet in this country. He called in another housemate from Pakistan, I think, and got him to volunteer to help with this. Jeepers, creepers. It felt a bit desperate and we all scrambled as soon as we could after that.

On the way home I tried to get DBrother to see that it might be a bit of a laugh if he and OBrother had a go at socialising in the house. The worst it could do would be to improve their English. But he wasn't really having it. And in response to cooking in the kitchen he just kept saying, 'I can't.'

When we got back to ours I relayed what Khan had said. OBrother accused me of trying to pin the bed fiasco on him. On the subject of the kitchen, DBrother said a load of garbled stuff to OH in Albanian but I understood the phrase 'lots of onions' and knew he was on a curry-hating, racist band-wagon. He then switched to Greek and said that, 'Up til now, we've played it your way, S,' to which I responded, 'Believe me, we're not doing anything the way I want it, but we are in my house!' He then said 'We've only been here three weeks'. 'Fair enough,' I said, 'but I don't want you cooking here every day for the next three months when you've got your own kitchen in your own place. We need to strike a balance here.' To which he retorted that he'd come to England to stay with his brother. And that we needed to work out how long he'd be welcome for. He then added that as soon as he was working, he'd eat out every day. I tried to keep calm and said that that isn't what I was asking. And he argued and said that yes, it was.

OH stood between us with a diplomatic stance and to be fair, did not side with his brothers. He pointed out to any one of us when we were becoming over-wrought or unfair and asked us to calm down and watch what we were saying. If I wasn't in such a terrible grump with him I'd have been finding it a bit of a turn-on. I think I even heard him say to DBrother at one point, 'She's right.' I also heard OBrother saying 'She's right!' a couple of times too, just to win some extra Brownie points from me, and to piss DBrother off.

But when the argument was clearly taking us no-where I flounced out saying, 'Oh, just get back to your football!' which they did. And OH cooked for them. And they ate. And then I pretended to run away from home by slamming the front door after me when I went off to get some rice crackers from the takeaway up the road. But no-one ran after me. So I ate them on my own. Two guesses where! (Still no beanbag.)