The Consequences of Guilt

'Why-o-why', I wondered, 'Do I break an important guitar-pickin' fingernail every time I have a big gig?'
Because those at home make me feel so guilty that I have a day of frantic housework beforehand (or beforefinger, actually), using vicious products that leach all the calcium from my nails at the same time as scalding the limescale off the bath.
Rubber gloves render my hands flabby and juicy and make my fingernails soft and snappable. What to do? Get rid of the guilt or stop doing the housework?
I just don't know.
But I've lost the second finger right hand nail, the one that twangs the jangly bits of my songs, and I'll have to run through the songs for tonight and get used to having the digital equivalent of a limp!
Last night, one at home had a little barbecue, expecting ten people. Each of those people turned up with an unzippable secret compartment inside which two more people were hiding. I had to keep going downstairs in my pyjamas to make myself cups of tea in order to cramp the style of the party.
At eleven o'clock I was looking fearfully out of the window for more tipsy revellers when I saw a massive hedgehog charging up and down the pavement in the dark, blundering into the road and trying to get run over. We wrapped it in a jacket and took it into the back garden. Sorry hedgehog, if you were looking for a mate, but you were at risk of imminent flattening by a suburban car, and the safety and sanctity of the garden is probably a better place for you until your urges die down.

Jazz Cafe with The Daintees tonight- what a treat. Time to get my best dress out of the wardrobe, and hoover off the moths.
By the way, here is a household tip. You know those strongly-scented lilies with the bright orange pollen that sprinkles about and ruins everything? Hoover the stamens with the pollen on. Either the pollen will disappear into the vaccuum, or the stamens will actually snap off and vanish. Its exciting and fun, though not as much fun as dance-polishing the floor with dusters tied to each foot.