The Scapegoat is a Dead Weight

He arrives home from work at half light. I have been careful to pull all the blinds closed. He kisses me on the forehead like a child, a new habit following jaw surgery. He moves around the house checking window and door locks before we go to bed. I follow him [translation = at heel] chatting furiously as best I might. Once I have exhausted all topics of conversation, [translation = jaw ache] I ask him questions to distract him. He waxes lyrical about the doings of his day as I dog his steps. “Hang on a minute! What’s this stuck in the door?” I spot a shred of bin liner. [translation = trash bag]
“Oh nothing!” I spit, scrabbling at the shreds of evidence. He opens the door and peers out as the gloom of night descends. “Why is the pool open?” [translation = cover pulled back]
“Oh, no real reason. Come on, lets go up to bed.” He steps outside, removes his glasses, shades his eyes against the moonlight and peers. “What is that?” he says striding towards the pool. I scurry after him, flapping a bit, hunting for interesting but credible lies. “What is the duvet doing in the pool? Which "one" of them was it?”
“Oh lets not talk about it now, lets go to bed.”
We have a strict policy in our home. The parent at home deals with the discipline of the children as the need arises. There is no need to repeat the exercise when the other parent returns home. [translation = double punishment]
“Come on, out with it.” He leans over the pool trying to snag a drifting corner. He hauls it towards him. “Shuzsh, that weighs a tonne, no wonder you didn’t pull it out. Just as well I came home when I did.”
“Lets leave it until the morning, it’s not doing any harm there.”
“Why is it all soapy? Why does it smell of………laundry detergent?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.” He continues to drag and heave at the duvet. [translation = like a double comforter] “Blimey, it must weigh 250 lbs, at least!”
“Careful you’ll do yourself a mischief.” [translation = an injury] “Leave it can’t you!” I say a little too loudly. He turns towards me, the guilty culprit. “O.k. so what happened, precisely.”
“I tried to wash it.”
“In the washing machine?”
“Yes.”
“You forgot it didn’t fit?”
“Well it did fit in the old one.”
“That was last year. You know we get a new one every year, just about.” [translation = disposable white goods]
“Well, I forgot. I was in a hurry.”
“How on earth did you get it in there in the first place?”
“I stood on it.”
“You stood on it?”
“I jumped a bit too, just enough until I could shut the lid.”
“When did it break, exactly.”
“Er well, it was o.k. for a few minutes and then it started making this groaning noise.”
“A groaning noise.”
“Yes, rather like a wounded animal.”
“And then it died?”
“Er, sort of.”
“Why didn’t you take it to the cleaners?”
“Well it was all wet then and I didn’t think I could get it in the car. Even if I did get it in the car, then the car would have been all wet too.”
“So.”
“I heaved it out onto the floor and then dragged it out on a bin bag to the pool and pushed it in.”
“You drowned the duvet.”
“Hmm.”
“Wait a minute. How did you get it out of the washer? How did you get it outside to the pool?” He looks at his scrawny wife. “You can haul something greater than your own body weight?”
“Motivation is the key!”
“You’ve missed your calling! Body disposal! I’d better watch out huh!”

The Scapegoat is a Dead Weight

http://alien-in-a-foreign-field.blogspot.com/2007/06/scapegoat-is-dead-weight.html