Last night I slept on my daughter’s windowsill on the third floor of our house which looks on to the street.  I had houseguest from the U.K. and I gave them my bedroom because I figured I could sleep with Evangeline up in her room.  We had spent the evening on the back deck drinking beers and reminiscing over our teenage years.  They are one of those couples that I would aspire to be if I had the coupling gene.  They also told me their secret to a successful marriage but I’m not going to tell you what is because my M.O. is to make everyone single again, like in our twenties, so I can level the playing field.  Suffice to say, as a duo , they are actually fun to be around and you never think when is he/she going to dump his/her ass?  Anyway when I went up to my daughter’s room, drunk-ish, there was no way she would have me in her bed.  I was wearing my bathrobe and I left my pyjamas somewhere downstairs.  She made me sleep on the window seat behind the curtains so she couldn’t see me and my snoring would be muffled.  When I woke up at sunrise, my robe had swung upon and my bare buttocks were pressed against the window.  Delicatessen hams for sale!  She didn’t even give me a blanket!

In my hangover-ish state this morning I had pangs of anxiety which is really my Spidey senses on high alert.  Whilst I made us all wild boar bacon in the George Foreman grill, scrambled eggs from the free-range  chicken farm, my guests and I gossiped about a gay couple that we know.  He said: “I can’t even tell them apart, they are morphing into each other!”  I think they have always looked alike, two slightly different versions of Cary Grant, which is why they coupled up, as some kind of extension of their Narcissism.  I read about this coupling strategy in Marie Claire, opposites might attract but they don`t stay together.  My ex-husband`s more simplified theory is that you should marry someone with the same colour hair as your own.  Mine is chestnut-brown and his blond is the colour of wet concrete which was by his estimation, the basis of our demise.  He is happy as a clamdigger with his fiancée who`s blondeness is maintained by a professional.  There`s a punchline there somewhere that you can come up with yourself because I am still slightly hung over.

When my guests were packing up to leave around noon, we sat on my front porch to gather our wits, when a man on a motorcycle pulled up in my driveway.  And from what I could see, he was cute!  And then he took off his helmet and it was Bob!  Who is Bob?  You might wonder.  Bob is my soul mate.  No, I am not some delusional single gal, projecting fantasies on to some poor sap and why, if he is my soul mate, do I sleep alone with my ass in the window?  Because Bob is my Remainder Man.  I know it’s not quite as panty-creaming as The Notebook but the concept of a Remainder Man is actually quite romantic.  Let me explain.  But hold on, I need to get a beer first.

I met Bob 11 years ago, when my kids were little but not hanging off my teat.  I was hot stuff, in my prime.  It was a hormonal thing beyond my control.  My previously dormant mojo had taken its nursing bra off and was acting like a 16-year-old boy on Chatroullette.  We went to the same gym and he would take care of his girlfriend’s two little kids so we be became acquainted in the daycare.  The very first time I saw him, I felt like I had known him for a hundred years.  And because he is the most gregarious man on the planet and I, the horniest  lady, we hit it off immediately.  We would have beers together at the gym restaurant.  His girlfriend eventually dumped him for a ginger man!  At the time, that was unheard of.  Gingers, in the pre-Prince Harry era, were perceived kind of wimpy and Bob is the opposite.   He is burly, muscle-y, walks with a jaunty gate, and when he smiles he has dimples and his eyebrows move back.   In case you were wondering, his hair is the same colour as mine, chestnut-brown, but he buzz cuts it and has the best widow’s peak ever.   His hands are good too (clean fingernails) and he can fix stuff.  She was stupid to dump him, I remember thinking back then, and she actually married that ginger dude and moved to country.  And Bob became my Remainder Man. 

The most important thing about the R-Man is that it is kept strictly platonic.  His role in your life and your role in his is to be there when you are both too tired or disgusting to bother to get in the game.  You must have a certain amount of sexual tension with your Remainder Man but do not act upon it, otherwise it will complicate everything!  You need to be kind of proud your R-Man because sometimes you need to prance him around the village like a show pony so that people will see you together and wonder if you are an item.  The humiliating image of you sleeping on a window sill with your bare ass pressed against the glass will be erased when they see you riding on the back of a motorcycle with your R-Man.  Sometimes the reason the R-Man is not your actual boyfriend is because his flaws are deal breakers. Bob likes country music (shudder).  In theory, when the timing is right,  those things won’t matter.  And by the way, when we get old, pretty much everyone ends up with white hair.  The nursing home becomes the most level playing field of them all!

When Bob got another girlfriend two and a half years ago, he kind of disappeared out of my life.  She is an introvert and disapproves of his party-animal lifestyle.  As it turned out, Bob bought a motorcycle last week.  And he and his girlfriend broke up last night.  She doesn’t get his nature and is tired of his camel-toe staring ways.  Her loss, my gain.  For now, at least, my Remainder Man is back but there is no way I`m going for a ride on that motorcycle!  Too scary!  And with that, I leave you with our song: