flossing the cat

Everyone remembers their first kiss, right? For me, the story involves a widowed second cousin-in-law, twice-removed, who lived in Carmarthenshire with some other cousins, who went by the name of Great Auntie Maud. (Fuck knows why I’m specifying the exact degree of kinship of those involved.) Suffice it to say that Great Auntie Maud was as old as Methuselah, and may have even been a childhood friend of his. Anyhoo, one day, during one particular visit to our cousins’ home, Great Auntie Maud shot up from her armchair as we were leaving, and stood in the doorway, blocking our exit. “Give Auntie Maud a kiss goodbye then”, she said, turning to me. I was thirteen and three-quarters at the time. And although kissing somebody was on my bucket list, Great Auntie Maud looked nothing like a) Andrew Ridgeley from Wham, b) John Taylor, the bass guitarist from Duran Duran, or c) Stephen Jones from Form 3C, who were the usual objects of my kissing fantasies. “What you waiting fo...