[Pub Lover]

Today while I was working, the local vicar came round.

This wasn't a surprise as we had spoken on the phone last friday and he said that he might pop in for coffee sometime. It's a practice that my parents regularly endure but I usually manage to avoid it. So I was about to suggest that I make some coffee when he proffered a large slice of fruitcake and explained that the reason for his visit is that he has this cake and thought that I may like it. Being vegan and a mega-pansy that is allergic to several kinds of everything, I always panic at the idea of people giving me food that I can't check the ingredients of.

I thanked him, and checked my watch as I had a deadline in an hour, and I wanted to check that I hadn't gone into catatonic shock. The vicar then explained that it's a very special cake that he was given after his wife's death and he had been keeping it in his freezer for the last two years.

Maybe you guys know what to do when a guy starts talking about his dead wife, and maybe you guys would have asked him in for coffee, but I was standing there holding a lightly wrapped piece of what could, with only a little hyperbole, be this man's ark of bereavement. I smiled inanely and fervently wished for a million burning devils to save me from this torment.

This is probably one of the symptoms of my crazy shut-in behaviour, but as soon as he said that the cake was the reason he came round, I assumed he was explaining that he was busy and wouldn't be able to stay for coffee. It was an hour after he had left and I was busy back at work when it occured to me he wanted to drink coffee and eat this sacred cake. I remembered my mother's observation that the vicar invented reasons so that he could come round and sit while drinking coffee.

Now, I don't know what to do. I have this cake, and I have rebuffed his desire for some social coffee drinking. Can I call him and suggest he come round and drink coffee and eat the cake? If he can't come to my door and say "Remember we spoke last week and I mentioned I might come round for some coffee? You said that this was a time when you would be free to do that, is that correct? Yes? Great! By the way, I happen to have this cake..." how can I ask that of him? Must I invent some reason for social contact beyond the simple pleasure that social contact produces?