Lipon

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, a young(er) mother lived in a share house with her daughter and two other ladies.

One was a beautiful Asian princess and one was a glorious Australian poet - but this story is not about them...

Once upon a time I sat on the back deck after the child's book time and song time and story time and sleep time to muse - but this story is not about her either...

Once upon a time, overlooking the glistening lights of  the 'Gabba and hearing crowds go home from yet another Lions victory *, I sent a query out to the universe.

The universe responded.  Yay universe.

Of late, Mrs Woog has come to bemoan the world of the online date, jaded as it is by charletan pollution and unsolicited daguerrotypes of appendages - and it brought to mind a little story from the beginning of the courtship of V and I.

Very early on in our long-distance communication, our conversations jumped from the computer screen to telephone screen.  We had interacted vocally, but at an exhorbitant fee **

I have told you that this was a long time ago - a long, long time ago, in fact.  So long ago, that when you texted, you had to not just type each letter individually  but r-e-a-l-l-y type each letter.  And not just no-predictor-text level of slowness, but a truly challenging task ***.

For example, to type in the world "understandably", you had to press "88663(wait a second for the phone to recognise that as "d")33777(pause)7777826632(pause)22555333" - and if you wanted to type "distraction", it was "3444777787772(pause)222844666(pause)66" - and as texts were CHARGED and limited in numbers of characters, you learned to abbreviate and spelling errors existed.

So, given it is the middle of Winter and given that there are no floor coverings where I was living (but moving from, to Paradise) and given that V was in warmer climes , our discussions turned to footwear and their relative merits.

Now, I am not renowned for my shoe-surety...  but it turned out to be V's toe in the door, his great step forward, emerging from the pond of hopeful suitors to contemplation of worth.

He lyrically described to me his slippers (there was one point in time when I could have quoted exactly the phrasing used) and its merits.  There was possibly an entendre or two thrown into the 160 character mix.  And then he told me The Pet Name.  He refered to his "lipon".

I nearly choked on my wine.   Who was this wierdo?

Then, he asked if I wanted to see a photo of "it".

I panicked and raced downstairs to where my poet-companion resided.  What the actual?

His fate was to be decided by his next missive.

A photo of a great big hairy (tartan) slipper! **** *****

It turned out, he had meant to type "slip-on" - and just like that, the courtship was back on track...

And the rest, as they say, is history.

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* yes, once upon a time the Lions won many games - even in a row.

** Doesn't that date a story - telephone calls used to be expensive and not part of a BUNDLE, children

***yet still legal to undertake while operating a motor vehicle, folks - the veritable dark ages

*** Unfortunately photographic proof is impossible as the phone has long since passed this mortal coil and it was so long ago, children, that CLOUDS did not exist - and

**** We have never since seen such a perfect pair of backless tartan hairy slipper suitable for a size 12 bloke.

So - what was your most memorable courtship gift - and was it solicited...