A conversation with my mother

I was walking down the High Street with my mother and she just came right out with it, outside the bookshop, at the top of her voice.

“Explain this to me. I know I’m an old woman and I’m going mad, but what does this mean when you see it on a blackboard outside a pub? Free wife.”

“Free wife? Are you sure it said that?”

“Positive. Free wife. It’s like something out of Thomas Hardy. I don’t know how they get away with it.”

“Nor do I. But it can’t be true. They’ve probably used the word free – free pint or free chips or something – and for some reason the word wife appears somewhere else on the board and you’ve put them together.”

“No. I may seem addled but I’m not. I double checked.”

“Why didn’t you say something? Which pub was it anyway?”

“The one just back there, next to the travel agents. The Albion.”

“OK. Never been in there. I would have thought handing out free wives would have got them into the local papers though. Not to mention the TV news. I still can’t believe it, but if you’re sure, maybe it does mean something.”

“It means the world has gone mad. It must be some sort of game like a reality TV show. Like that one where they choose the next model, or Wife Swap.”

“I suppose it could be a combination of the two. The contestants live with different women for a day or two at a time – just shopping and DIY – no hanky panky – then at the end of the programme, or series, the women choose which man to take for a husband. But I can’t see that format working in a pub. Mind you, it would liven up a game of darts.”

“Why do people watch television programmes like that anyway? What’s wrong with Coronation Street?”

“Absolutely. Do you still watch Corrie then?”

"Sometimes, but it isn’t what it used to be. Too many young people, always on their mobile phones. Texting. E-mailing. Surfing. It’s all computers these days. They’re always communicating. We never communicated when we were young. We just talked.”

“But that’s what it’s like now. Look there’s one now.” I pointed at a teenager crossing the road, with one eye on the traffic, the other on her mobile, and both ears plugged into her iPod.

“And there’s too much adultery and people having it off with each other behind their backs, that’s not entertainment is it? And East Enders is worse. That’s, what do you call it, science fiction, no, something else, another word. That’s a parallel universe, that’s what it is. I wouldn’t want to live there. Why don’t they just move somewhere nicer?”

“I think they wouldn’t have a programme then Mum.”

“But no-one lives like that. Do they?”

“Luckily, I can honestly say I don’t know, but I suspect maybe there are people who are like that. Not around here though, so nothing to worry about eh?”

I drove her home, to her bungalow on the hill, saw her into the house and made sure she was safely ensconced with a cup of tea and her cat, then drove home. I made a detour to drive past The Albion, to take a look at the now infamous blackboard and sure enough, right at the top in big white capital letters, as bold as brass, it said:

FREE WI-FI.