Squashes and other ways of feeling better

Early last month, in an effort to cheer me up, one of my friends sent me a card, inside which was written:

I asked the boys at work what to get for a man in the circumstances under which you would get a girl flowers/chocolates/pampering stuff.

They helpfully suggested a stripper.

I thought the next best thing was a butternut squash and some dead budgies. Well, it was that or the backside of a pig.

Anyway, Jack and I think you are fantastic, and he sends his love also, though he is a little sad about the budgies.

The front of the card has some pears clustered around murdered budgies, and a glowering butternut squash looking at them. The caption is: "The boss walked into the meeting room and reiterated that budgets must be slashed...".

Which did, indeed, cheer me up (although I bet a stripper would have done, too).

But that wasn't the end. A couple of days later I got a small package through the letterbox that turned out to contain a miniature pot of jam, with a note saying "in continuation of not getting you a stripper, here is some jam we stole from a hotel".

This was swiftly followed by another package, with a Lily O'Briens chocolate crispy heart inside ("originally I stole two of these for you, but then I ate one"). It was around this time that I felt more cheered up than a stripper would ever have managed.

Finally (just before watching Mission: Impossible 3), she gave me a pair of Twinings fruit teabags, and ... a fork. It was around this time that I started worrying for her sanity, and wondered if I should send her a stripper.