Nuts in April

I live at my girlfriend’s flat. She’s an ex-smoker herself. Whenever I smoked here I would go out onto her little balcony. This had the added advantage of getting out of earshot as well as providing pleasant quiet moments looking at the flora and fauna (a solitary urban fox) and sipping coffee. Knowing I’d still want such moments she rather sweetly provided me with a hamper of goodies to make up for the absent roll-ups whilst sitting outside.

The contents of the hamper are:

6 packs of Orbit sugar free gum with xylitol for healthier teeth

250g of Garden of Eden Bombay Mix

1 Oral-B Braun powered AdvancePower 900 electric toothbrush

1 tar-free nicotine-free Crafe Away dummy cigarette with ‘New Tobacco Flavour’ (“You’ll probably save much more than £1.99 on the cigarettes you don’t smoke” it says on the packet. I very much doubt R spent £1.99 on the thing. I am still not sure what you are supposed to do with it- suck the end like a real cigarette or chuck the whole thing in your gob and eat it).

1 HBee Tongue Cleaner – “easy to use” “removes food residue.” Yum.

300g of Sainsbury Monkey Nuts (Standard Edition- the packet helpfully informs you that they are “roasted peanuts in shells”).

500g of Sainsbury’s Monkey Nuts (Basic Edition. Basic users apparently don’t need any of the background “peanuts in shells" stuff. They have to make do with the slogan – “simply nuts, not for monkeys”. Cut price marketing eh? You pay peanuts and you get…

2 whole coconuts…oh my giddy aunt. Where will this all end? No hammer included to open them with.

50ml of Nicogel water soluble aromatherapy gel with botanical extract of Nicotiana spp. I haven’t a clue what you’re supposed to do with this. Smear it on the Crafe Away fake cigarette before chucking in gob?

150g Sainsbury’s (Standard) Pistachios. No explanations. No slogans. No nothing.

75g Dormen’s Jumbo Pistachios – Finest Quality. Big. Not as big as coconuts. But still big.

200g Iranian Pistachios. The slogan is- “For goodness sake”.

25ml of MontagneJeunesse Watermelon and BalmMint deodorising foot scrub.

Well there you have it – life is to be one long nut-eating session interspersed only by the occasional tongue scrape and self-administered foot massage .

I’m not surprised she omitted the hammer from the box.