Death Threats, Rust and Gynaecologists

More excitement this morning. I find an invitation in my in-box to an event in London - from a rather attractive and well-known journalist/broadcaster - and in my own right, not just representing The Boss!

I think the journo may have confused me with someone else, but I wish I could go anyway. Imagine being the kind of person who gets to hang out with the intelligentsia, instead of wearing Primark and watching TV while contemplating Max snoring on the sofa. That's how my life was supposed to be.

Maybe everyone would be too polite to tell me that I'm not the Molly Bennett they must be expecting? Oh, bugger. I've just remembered it's supermarket surgery at Tesco on Saturday, so I definitely can't go to London. If I do, I'll never get all the stupid surgery follow-up letters done in time to meet The Boss's 24-hour correspondence deadline. Sometimes I hate that section on TheyWorkForYou.com which rates MP's performance in responding to constituents.

The rest of the day is pretty dull, as if to rub in how boring my life is. The Boss is getting death threats, written in red ink. I'm inclined to ignore them as, apart from the distinctive colour, they're not much different to those he gets all the time. (Greg denies any involvement and claims not to own a colour printer, so it's not him.)

However, then someone from Special Branch phones to say that they've infiltrated a group of animal-rights extremists and think we should step up our precautions against attack. The officer wants to know what our security arrangements are. When I tell him we don't have any, he suggests we get some, preferably yesterday.

He doesn't sound at all impressed when I say that The Boss doesn't agree with security arrangements as they are a "threat to democracy." Instead, he asks whether Andrew realises that, while he is protected for most of the week by the security at the House of Commons, Greg and I are "totally vulnerable."

His voice is so sexy that I resist the temptation to sarcasm, and somehow avoid saying "Gosh, officer, we hadn't thought of that!" Instead I surprise myself by flirting a bit - the Boxer dog tails woman must have been contagious - and confiding that The Boss isn't the easiest person to manage.

It works remarkably well, so maybe I haven't completely lost the ability to flirt successfully - although I suppose the officer can't actually see what I look like. Anyway, he agrees to visit tomorrow so that he can carry out a security inspection and make recommendations to The Boss as to what needs to be done. Ha! Perhaps now we'll actually get a panic button or something - maybe even CCTV.

I'd have had the pleasure of Officer Sexy's company sooner, as he really wanted to come out this afternoon, but I have to leave work early for my appointment with the gynaecologist - though I don't tell him that. A woman must protect her dignity, after all.

I have insisted that Max comes to the hospital with me in case I am asked how often we have sex, so that he can share the embarrassment if I tell the truth. He must have thought I was joking, as he's really not amused when I answer the gynaecologist's question about whether I can think of anything that might be causing the problem by saying, "Rust?"

Max is still not talking to me when we get home, and things are frosty until the doorbell rings. It's Annoying Ellen, oh joy. That's three times she's borrowed the damned corkscrew this week. You'd think that, with such a generous divorce settlement, she could afford her own.

After she left last time, Max said, "She's always so cheerful." I said that I'd be bloody cheerful too if I had a huge house, all paid-for; tons of alimony and the kids home for only one week in two - not to mention a succession of toyboys. Max looks even more pained at the mention of toyboys than he did about the rust.

A Licence To Kill

Oh God, I hate Fridays. I'm on the phone to DEFRA this morning when The Boss arrives, dumps his briefcase on my desk and opens it. A crumpled shirt and five pairs of obviously dirty Y-fronts fall out. He fishes around for a folder, and then buggers off to do an interview, leaving me staring at skid marks. I have a degree!

Andrew returns after lunch, just in time for surgery. There are the usual collection of total nutters, interspersed with the odd sane person with a really serious problem. I'm disturbed by yet another case where a middle-aged patient has apparently died unnecessarily while an in-patient at the local hospital. From dehydration.

That's the fifth or sixth case in the last three months. Honestly, I'm not at all sure that care is improving since they started making nurses do degrees. I make a mental note to contact the advice agencies and see if they've heard about any other cases, as I'm getting a bit worried about what's going on.

The Boss doesn't seem quite as exercised by death as he does about the ban on docking Boxer dogs' tails. This probably has less to do with Andrew having a secret desire to mutilate dogs, than with the fact that the constituent in favour of it turns out to be a reasonably attractive woman in her late forties.

She flirts outrageously with The Boss, who flirts outrageously back. Before I know it, he's agreed to consider bringing a Private Members Bill to reinstate docking, and she leaves in a presumably-hormonal tizz.

Andrew's still flushed with success when I show Mr Beales in, and greets him like a long-lost friend. Does The Boss have to do that? The usual suspects need no encouragement.

Grinning like an idiot, Mr Beales pulls out a piece of paper, ignores my outstretched hand and passes it to The Boss.

"If you could just sign that, Andrew, I'll be on my way," he says.

Since when does Mr Beales call The Boss Andrew? It doesn't seem to bother anyone but me, though - and The Boss flourishes his biro.

"At least read it first!" I say - sotto voce, or at least, that's what I hope, but Big Ears Beales hears me anyway. He pushes his double-barred paedophile glasses to the end of his nose and peers over them at me. His eyes are cold.

"It's just my shotgun licence application," he says. "Your Boss knows me -"

"Indeed he does," I say, "That was rather my point. Andrew, are you sure you don't want to wait and think about this first?"

The Boss finally notices my expression, which Greg says is the one that makes me look like the Infected  in "28 Days Later," and reacts.

"Ah, Edmund," he says. "Molly's right, you know -"

"Thank God for that," I say, under my breath, but then The Boss continues,

"She's forgotten to type up that reference for the court. Tell you what, she can go and do that now, and I'll sign this while you wait."

Of such incidents are armed serial killers made. I give up.