This week I’ve been going to the gym on a semi-regular basis. I’ve done Body Combat. I’ve done Body Pump. I’ve done Blast Abs. I would’ve done Body Attack, but …. well, we all know what happened when I tried to go to Body Attack….
Anyway, I’ve been a busy girl, is what I’m saying. And even although I’ve done more exercise this week than I’ve done in the past couple of months, I’m pleased to report that I have managed not to harm myself in any way, which is no small achievement when you’re as clumsy as I am.
Then, last night? Last night I was lying in bed, drifting off to sleep, as you do, when I decided to roll from my back onto my side. You know, the kind of small, insignificant movement we all do hundreds of times in our lives, without even giving it a second though. I had almost completed this delicate manoeuvre when….
PING!
Something “went” in my back. There was a sensation not unlike someone trying to stab me, and then suddenly my entire torso was flooded with pain, which somehow managed to spread from my back to my chest in mere seconds. It was really quite alarming, and my piteous moaning was enough to wake Terry, who is luckily quite used to this sort of thing by now.
“Terry!” I said. “Terry, I think I’m having a heart attack! There’s a pain in my chest, and also in my back, and OMG, I am totally having a heart attack!”
Now, you might expect that this news would cause Terry to leap from the bed and call for an ambulance, but instead he simply opened one eye and regarded me in exasperation.
“You’re not having a heart attack,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
Ha, like THAT was going to happen! I regaled him with the full story, about how I’d tried to turn over, and had felt something “go” in my back, and at this point, Terry interrupted me.
“Oh, right,” he said. “A twang. You’ve had a twang. Go back to sleep.”
“A TWANG?” I said, forgetting my ongoing heart attack for a moment. “Is that a medical term?”
Terry opened one eye. “It’s just a twang,” he said. “They’re painful, twangs, but it’s not a heart attack. It’ll be sore for a while. Go back to sleep.”
And with that, he rolled over and went back to sleep himself, leaving me and my TWANG to get on with it.
I was still alive this morning, so I’m assuming it was, indeed, a “twang” and not the heart-attack I’d suspected. The muscle that “twanged” though, is still really freaking sore, meaning that every time I try to do simple things, like reach for a cup of coffee or try to wrestle my tights out of Rubin’s mouth, it will “twang” again, and I will be forced to whine like a small child.
Needless to say, I did not go to the gym this morning. I did learn a new word, though…
Tagged Terry
One of the biggest advantages of being self-employed and working from home is that I don’t really have to leave the house very often if I don’t want to. In the winter, I don’t normally want to, so while we obviously HAVE to leave the house sometimes, I will actively avoid anything that puts me in contact with the icy chill of the outside world for longer than it takes to walk from the house to the car. The car that has generally been pre-heated and de-iced by Terry before I have to go anywhere near it. Sometimes it pays to be a total princess about stuff, you know?
This morning, though, I wanted to go to an early morning (!) gym class, and Terry didn’t, and so it was that I found myself face to face with a car that resembled a block of solid ice. Of course, given that I don’t generally go outside at this time of year any more, I had totally neglected to allow time before my class for the scraping of the car, and so once I’d managed to prise the door open with my fingers (it was frozen solid and I should just have taken that as A Sign and gone back to bed, in retrospect) I decided there was no option but to go for the old “lukewarm water on the windows” trick (Note: don’t try this at home, kids.) if I wanted to get to the gym on time.
What I didn’t realise, though, is that Terry had rearranged the contents of the kitchen since the last time I’d been in there, so I couldn’t find any kind of jug/other large water receptacle suitable for the pouring of lukewarm water on my car. I guess I could’ve used the kettle, now I come to think of it, but… well, I DIDN’T come to think of it. It was early. I don’t really “do” early.
So I used a teacup.
It was the only thing I could find in a hurry, and seriously, never use a teacup to carry lukewarm water to your car, because only stupid people do that. It does not save time, because you have to make eleventy one trips to and from the kitchen, clutching your cup of lukewarm water, and if you’re anything like me, your paranoia of cracking the windscreen will mean that your water isn’t quite lukewarm enough, and so, by the time you’ve finished pouring it onto the car, and have managed to locate a pair of old sunglasses in the Ikea Cabinet O’Doom that lives by your door (because despite being freezing cold, it was naturally so sunny I couldn’t see a damn thing without them), the water you’ve just poured over your car to defrost it will have re-frozen, and you’ll have to start all over again, only this time using the scraper, like you should have done in the first place.
Also, if you’re like me, the leg of the old sunglasses you dug up will fall off on your way down the driveway, but by now you’ll be running so late you won’t have time to return to the house for a new pair, so you’ll be forced to drive to the gym with the broken sunglasses perched on your nose, held there by a single leg and sheer willpower. GOD.
Having gone through all of this even before leaving the driveway, though, it stood to reason that my car would wait until we were halfway to the gym and then decide to pull one of its “I’m about to break down and ain’t nothing you can do about it!” tricks. I had been expecting this. As those of you with the patience of saints will recall, the car has done this before, last winter, and the considered opinion of Those Who Know About Cars on that occasion was, “The car doesn’t like the cold.” Yeah, no joke. I know how it feels.
So, we get to the first set of traffic lights between the house and the gym. Naturally, they are at red, so I stop the car and as soon as I do, it starts the whole, “I think I might… Yes, I will! I’m going to stall now! Yes, I am! I am! I totally am! Actually, no, I’m not. All fine. As you were.” To which I replied: “#%$!!*”&”
Despite this, we reached the gym without stalling. Only to find that the class I’d tried so hard to get to on time? Wasn’t on. Instead, they’d decided to have a step class. I do not do step classes. So I dragged my weary ass into the gym itself and onto a treadmill. The treadmill was next to a window. From the window, I could see my car sitting in the car park. It looked like it was planning something. Something probably involving stalling in the middle of a busy roundabout and condemning me to certain death. I was sure of it. And there was no way I was driving it home while it was in that kind of mood.
So I decided to make Terry drive it home.
I think it’s fair to say Terry wasn’t exactly thrilled to get that phone call. In fact, I may have become slightly hysterical as I tried to convince him that the car was totally trying to kill me, and that he should come and drive it home, leaving me his safe, non-murderous car instead. Terry did his best to convince me, in turn, that no, the car was fine, and that maybe I could just bring The Drama down a notch or two and DRIVE HOME LIKE A NORMAL PERSON but there’s no reasoning with me when I’m like… there’s no reasoning with me. Terry would have to bring himself, his car and his headache to the gym, and that’s why the next time he sees MY number come up on the caller display, he’ll know better than to answer.
Terry had told me to go and start up the car while I was waiting for him, so I went downstairs and as I opened the double doors of the gym’s snack bar, which you have to walk through to get out, I heard The Beatles strike up on the radio. Really loudly.
“PAAAAAAPPPPPERRRRBAAAACKKK WRRIIIIITTEEEER! ” said The Beatles. “Writer, writer!”
“That’s nice!” said I. “Love that song. Also: I would like to be a Paperback Writer too someday! Lovely. Very loud, though.”
I walked to the doors, humming along as I went, and actually feeling quite sad as the gym doors closed behind me and the music stopped. I headed to the car, got in, and turned the key in the ignition.
It would not start.
I tried again.
It STILL wouldn’t start.
I tried one more time. This time, the car started, and as it did, the car spoke.
“PAAAAAAAAAAPPPEEERRRRBAAAACK WRRIIIIIIITTTEEEER!” said the car. “Writer! Writer!”
“Freaky!” said I. “I hope Paul McCartney isn’t dead or something, because why else would Paperback Writer be on constant rotation on the radio?”
But the radio wasn’t switched on. And I’m ashamed to admit this, but when I realised that, it took me a good couple of minutes to stop freaking the hell out and wondering why The Beatles were haunting me, and just what it was John Lennon was trying to tell me from beyond the grave. Other than that he wanted to be a paperback writer, obviously. For surely, I told myself, the fact that my every move was now accompanied by the playing of Paperback Writer was some kind of Sign?
And it was. It was a sign, people.
It was a sign that SOMEONE WAS TRYING TO CALL ME, because Paperback Writer? Is the ring tone on my phone. The ring tone I set back when I first got the phone. In JUNE. This tells you how often people phone me. It also tells you that I’d obviously been walking through the gym with loud music blaring from my person. Yes, I was that asshole with the loud music! And now I feel bad about that girl whose eyes I wanted to poke out last week because she was playing music from her phone/MP3 player/thingy while wandering around a clothes shop. Maybe she just forgot what her ringtone sounded like too?
Anyway. Terry turned up not long after that, and pretended he didn’t actually mind being dragged out of the house to come to my “rescue”.
And then my car drove like a dream all the way home.
Figures.
Tagged car wars, phones, Terry
Terry pointed out this morning that my last post here was not only several days ago, but was also a post in which I insinuated that if there were no further posts, er, I was probably dead. Whoops.
Well, I’m not dead, although thanks for the massive outpouring of anxiety, folks! I’m just lazy busy. Also, The Voice hasn’t spoken again since, and if I can’t give you tales of mysterious voices which speak in my bedroom, then what can I give you? Absolutely nothing has happened recently. It’s just been all work and no play, and you know what that makes Amber, right? Yes, it makes her a CHUNKY MONKEY. I know this because someone very kindly left a comment on The Fashion Police to that effect this morning. The full text of the comment read:
“That dress looks like all ur faces! Don’t hate the player hate the game! Ur chunky monkeys! “
Geniuses walk amongst us, folks, they really do. And just imagine, there’s a dress in the world that looks like ALL my faces! Wow! Not just one of my faces, ALL of them! And I are a chunky monkey – sorry, monkeys, plural, whee!
Another excellent comment from today, this time concerning one of my “Ugly Prom Dress” posts:
“naw aint no way in hell she must was on drugs or something need to kill herself asap”””thats sad a hot mess omg omg omg omg omgll”’
Omg omg omg omg omg, indeed! Because a bad dress is totally good reason to kill yourself, “naw”? ASAP!
After some consultation with my Twitter followers, I have decided to give this bizarre type of English used by tween blog commenters a name. I am going to call it “Blinglish” – the type of English used in blog comments. And, having named it, I am now adding it to my list of Things I Would Ban If I Ruled the World. A further example of “Blinglish” can be found here, incidentally).
I’m quite liking being a Chunky Monkey, though.
Tagged email fun, the fashion police
Well, it’s finally happened: I’ve started hearing voices.
Luckily for me (or perhaps not, actually), Terry and Rubin have also been hearing the voices, so it would appear that what we’re dealing with here isn’t so much A Descent into Madness as it is a Haunting. (We’re also apparently dealing with Random Capitalisation of Words, but to be honest, that’s the least of my worries right now considering I’m HEARING VOICES, people, OMG!).
I heard the first Voice one day last week. I can’t remember which day it was, but it was towards the end of the week. Let’s call it “Thursday”. Anyway, it was about 3pm. Terry, Rubin and I were all in the office, with the door open onto the hall. At the end of the hall (which is only about two metres long), our bedroom door was also open.
It was from the bedroom that The Voice spoke.
Now, I don’t know what The Voice said, and neither does Terry, because he didn’t actually hear it that time. Rubin, however, also heard The Voice, and I know this because when It spoke, he looked towards the bedroom and then looked up at me as if to say, “Am I going crazy here, or is there A Voice in your bedroom right now?”
There was no Voice in the bedroom, though, as we Terry discovered when I made him go and check things out. In fact, I don’t think he even believed me, no matter how hard I tried to convince him that, yes! There had been a Voice! That said words! That I couldn’t quite make out! He insisted that it must have been someone outside in the street.
I was unconvinced by this. The Voice, you see, had been RIGHT THERE; it had only said one or two words, but when it said them it had clearly been standing just out of sight, IN OUR BEDROOM. Which was creepy, really. But I decided to go with Terry’s “someone in the street outside” theory, mostly because it was preferable to believing that I was either:
a) Mad
or
b) Being haunted
Then, on Monday, The Voice spoke again.
This time, Terry heard it too, as did Rubin. Again, it happened at about 3pm, and again, The Voice seemed to be coming from just inside our bedroom. It said one, or possibly two, words. Terry thought it said “Continue”. I thought it said, “Hey, you!” Rubin hasn’t offered a theory as to what The Voice said yet, but to be completely honest with you, Rubin’s theories are almost always pretty fantastical, so it’s probably just as well.
Anyway. We all rushed into the bedroom to investigate, Scooby Doo style. (Well. Obviously I rushed a little bit slower than Terry and Rubin did. Well, would YOU want to come face to face with a disembodied Voice? I think not.) Needless to say, there was nothing there. There was no one in the street outside. But there had been a VOICE. Again. And now I for one was good n’ freaked.
One thing we’d both noticed was that while obviously human, The Voice sounded a little bit robotic, almost like a recording. So, naturally we thought it must be coming from some kind of electrical item in the room.
Electrical items in the room at the time of The Second Speaking:
- Our mobiles. These are, of course, the chief suspects here, but neither of them showed any signs of having received a call or text, or carried out any kind of action. Mine had been at my parents’ house at the time of the First Speaking, so it was off the hook anyway, and Terry’s wouldn’t really know how to speak like that, even if it wanted to. So we don’t think it was them, but we’re keeping them under close observation.
- Alarm clocks: well, they’ve never spoken before, and both make beeping noises rather than Voices, but we did check and no alarms were found to have been set.
- Hairdryer and straighteners: both mutes, and therefore innocent of all charges.
- Er, that’s it on the “electrical items” front.
So, it’s a mystery. And it’s a mystery I would quite like to have solved, thanks very much, because for the last two nights, every time I’ve woken up I’ve been horribly aware of the fact that, why, The Voice must’ve been standing right next to MY SIDE OF THE BED each time it spoke! And then I’ve had to lie there awake with my head under the covers, too scared to open my eyes in case I come face to face with The Voice. Or the body belonging to the voice, anyway. It would be pretty hard to come face to face with just a Voice. I hope.
We did, of course, notice that both pronouncements from The Voice happened at roughly the same time of day, so we were thinking this might be significant, but 3pm passed on both Tuesday and today without incident.
We’re stumped. If there are never any more posts here, though, and Terry and I should disappear under mysterious circumstances, please feel free to forward this post to the police. Or the Ghostbusters, maybe. Thanks.
Tagged the voice
Dear Charity Collectors,
I already give to charity every month. I give to charities I have chosen, and I do it by direct debit. As much as I’d love to give more money, to more charities, if I gave to everyone who came knocking on my door begging for money, I’d end up in need of charity myself, pretty damn soon. Also, I don’t keep money in the house anyway.
This is why I really dislike it when you come to my home to ask for money. It’s nothing personal, and I understand why you do it, but I don’t like people intruding into my time uninvited, no matter how good they feel their cause may be. I will decide who I give my money to. I will decide when and how I give it, and I don’t really enjoy feeling like I have to justify myself to random strangers who come knocking on my door.
I don’t like it, but of course I put up with it, as long as the charity collectors in question aren’t pushy about it and as long as they clear off when I ask them to.
When you do knock on my door, though, and I send you away empty handed (or when Terry does it, as the case may be), I expect you to STAY AWAY. I do not expect you to turn up again an hour later and repeat your request for money. And I certainly don’t expect you to say, “Oh, are you still watching TV?” when you’re told once again that your presence on the doorstep is not welcome.
Oh, and when the TV show I’m watching is something important, like, say, the inauguration of the new leader of the free world, I REALLY don’t appreciate your presence on my doorstep for the second time in one day.
This is why if you show up at my door one more time, I will be contacting the charity you represent and making a complaint. And my dog will bite your bum. Just FYI.
Yours,
The Girl Who Will Never Give You Any Money Now
Tagged charity collectors
Terry and I are both sleep talkers. As you can imagine, this has led to some fun times in our house of an evening, and it’s weird because we can go for months without saying a word, and then all of a sudden we’re both Chatty McChatterson, talking non-stop, and none of it making sense.
My favourite sleep talking episode? That would be the time a couple of years ago when Terry was woken one night by the sound of my hysterical laughter. When he asked me just what the hell was so funny at 4am, all he could get out of me was the immortal line:
“There’s a puppet on my hand! And the bird is trying to get it!”
Now, Pepe le Parrot was staying with us at the time of this utterance, which may well explain the reference to “the bird”, but as for the puppet on my hand? No idea. Don’t even want to know, to be honest. Terry did manage to get me back a few nights later, though, when I woke up to find him patting my nose. “Good dog,” he said when I opened my eyes, “You’re a good dog…”
As insulting as that was, it was actually LESS insulting than the time I woke up to find him staring at me in abject horror. When I spoke to ask him what his problem was, he shrieked like a girl, and later explained, “I thought you were a log. I couldn’t believe it when you moved…” In Terry’s defence, his talking mostly happened when he was on dialysis, and we reckon all the various medications and chemicals in his blood combined to create the perfect conditions for a good old Sleep Talkin’. Dunno what my excuse is, though.
Anyway, it so happens that we’re currently going through a McChatty period in our lives, which was marked last week by two episodes in the one night. Mine was just your regular, run-of-the-mill “Oh my God, there’s a spider on the ceiling and it’s totally going to crawl into my mouth any second!” sleep talk. (Note: there wasn’t.) Terry, however, managed to score a personal best by shaking me awake to say – with a great deal of excitement and a small amount of self-importance, I might add – “There’s a melting coming! And when the melting comes? We will follow it!”
I’m hoping that was just nonsense and not, you know, a premonition. But just in case you believe in these kind of things, let me be the first to warn you about THE MELTING. It is coming, people. You’re welcome.
Tagged sleep talk
This is a kinda boring Friday Five, but hey, “boring” has never stopped me before, so without further ado:
What are your favorite smells/scents?
Cut grass. Petrol. Sunscreen. Rubin’s head (when he’s not been rubbing it in Unmentionables, obviously). The pages of certain books, particularly textbook-type ones, which often have this really distinctive scent that I can’t really describe – only when they’re new, though. Libraries. The interior of Lush stores. Leather handbags. The immigtration hall at Sanford airport. The interior of a brand new car. Terry’s neck.
Do they bring back memories for you? If so, what?
Well, yeah. For instance, the smell of Rubin’s head? Totally makes me think of Rubin, every time. Cut grass and sunscreen makes me think of summer, d’uh! Petrol… umm, let me get back to you on that. Other things, like a certain brand of supermarket hairspray, transport me instantly back to my teenage years, when I used to spray my hair into this hideous “quiff” thing, that would still be standing even after I’d slept on it. This hairspray was so strong you could use it to stick coins to your forehead, and I’ve no idea how I came to discover that. Also, The Body Shop’s White Musk perfume will take me back to that same era, while Calvin Klein’s ‘Escape’ is my 2nd year of university, and ‘Obsession’ is a certain bar in a certain small town in central Scotland, with sticky carpets and stale cigarette smoke.
What are your least favorite smells/scents?
Hospitals. That unique smell of disinfectant and… well, death, I guess.
Do they bring back memories for you? If so, what?
Yes, and too many of them.
What are your favorite perfumes/colognes?
I like to stick to a ‘signature’ scent rather than swapping around. For years now it’s been Jean Paul Gaultier’s ‘Classique’, but I’m thinking of defecting to ‘Fragile’. I guess I’m a Gaultier girl at heart, although as the answers above show, I also like Calvin Klein’s work in the fragrance department, and you can’t beat a bit of Chanel.
And now it’s your turn…
Lately I’ve started to notice that the Internet has ruined some words for me. These are perfectly good words (well, some of them are, anyway…); words I’ve even used myself, and probably still do from time to time. But their use on the Internet has totally ruined them, to the extent that a little part of me dies every time I see them used. (And a little part of me exaggerates every chance it gets, clearly. Sorry about that.) For instance:
“LOL”
OK, so my very first example and it’s not even a word. I know. But this is actually my point: “LOL” has started to be used on the Internet almost as if it was one. In fact, I bet there are kids out there now who don’t even know that “LOL” used to mean “laughing out loud.” Seriously. And it’s not like it’s often used these days to indicate that the person is actually laughing out loud, is it? No, it’s used almost as a kind of punctuation. Like, people will write, “I’m off to bed now, lol!” Or “I’m looking forward to eating dinner tonight, lol!” Or, “I’m really tired, lol!”
WHY? Why are they laughing out loud at these things? Oh, that’s right, they’re NOT. They’re just saying it. For no reason. I AM NOT LAUGHING. OUT LOUD OR OTHERWISE.
Note: Yes, I know I’ve done this too, so no need to go through my archives and point it out to me, lol!
“Cute”
I write about fashion for a living. This means that I also READ a lot about fashion. I’ve noticed that most people use the word “cute” a lot to describe items of clothing and shoes. This is perfectly fine, of course, but they use it almost as if there were no other words available to them. Seriously, I’ve had comments on The Fashion Police from people who’ve said stuff like, “Today I’m wearing a cute skirt with a cute sweater, some cute shoes and this really cute handbag. I think I look really cute!” And EVERYONE does this. If I post a picture of something that’s… er…beautiful, say, I will get twenty comments, all saying that the thing is “cute!”. (I’ll also get half a dozen saying I need to die now, but that’s another post altogether…)
I’m aware that this is irrational of me, but I’ve now started to cringe every time I see or hear the word “cute”. I have banned myself from using it. LOL!
“Sorry”
GOD. This word is currently my Public Enemy Number 1. Now, don’t get me wrong: “sorry” is absolutely fine, as long as the person IS ACTUALLY SORRY. And most of the time? They freaking aren’t. Yes, I’m talking about the good old “Sorry, but…” I think I may have mentioned this before. When someone starts a sentence with the words “Sorry, but…” you instantly know that they ARE NOT SORRY and are just going to try and make you feel bad. There are some days when almost ALL the comments I get at The Fashion Police start with the word “sorry”. And I don’t understand why, either, because often the people are actually agreeing with me. Like, I’ll post a picture of an ugly dress, and describe it as an “ugly dress” in the title. It will be filed in the “ugly dress” category and I’ll probably say something in the post to the effect of, “Hey, this is not very cute.” And then I’ll get a bunch of comments from people, all saying, “Sorry, but I think this dress is ugly.” Um, yeah, so do I. Why are you sorry?
Anyway. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned this, because when I mentioned my irritation with the misuse of “LOL” to Terry a few weeks ago, I suddenly started getting a bunch of text messages and emails. They all purported to be from Rubin, and they would all say things like, “Amber, I need a pee, lol!” Or “Amber, is time for my dinner yet, lol!” Sometimes they would just say, “LOL!” Today I received this:
 lol! And last month, when it snowed? Terry took the rubbish out one night, and when I looked out of the window afterwards, I saw this:
Which, actually, isn’t so bad, is it?
Tell me then, which words should I add to my Hate List?
Tagged lol, words I hate
A few quick housekeeping notes, regarding The Blawg, The House and, well, ME, basically.
1. The Blawg:
For a few days around Christmas/New Year/Whenever, WordPress decided that rather than just publish all of the lovely comments people leave here, it would, instead, select random comments to hold in a “pending” queue, which I would then have to publish manually. I have no idea why it did this, and it didn’t bother to tell me it was doing it, so if you happened to publish a comment here back in December and it didn’t appear, don’t worry, you haven’t been blacklisted or anything (Well, unless yours was one of the many comments inviting me to view porn or enlarge my penis, in which case you can sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here…), and your comment has now been published. Sorry about that.
2. The House
For Christmas, Terry was given money, which he used to replace one of the broken monitors on his computer. Then he decided to just replace the other one, too. (For yes, Terry is spechul enough to need two monitors. For, you know, his TWO HEADS.) Then he apparently lost his mind and thought, “Screw it! If two monitors are good, why THREE MONITORS must be even better!” So he bought another one. This is what his desk now looks like:
 Teh master OMG!!!1! (note: he DID change the wallpaper, by the way. He is no longer The Master.)
Here, meanwhile, is my desk:
Key:
1. SAD lamp
2. Salad forks
3. Yeah, ya got me – all I actually do is look at my own blog all day…
4. Magazines, on top of THE PRINTER, which lives on my desk on account of Terry’s being covered in monitors
5. Small pile o’makeup for me to review. (Note to self: maybe get round to doing that sometime..)
6. The replacement for the water bottle Rubin killed. Not that I was going to the gym that day, of course…
7. Big pile o’ ear plugs.
8. The mug is still going strong, Erik!
And you know what’s annoying? My desk NEVER looks that untidy. I am a neat freak. I cannot breathe when I’m surrounded by STUFF like that, and I did clean it right after I took that picture, I promise…
Also, and on a not totally unrelated note: has anyone seen the charger for my cellphone? Because I sure as hell haven’t, and Terry and I have turned the house upside down looking for it. WHERE DID IT GO? I had to order a new one, such was my dire need of it, but that hasn’t been much use to me either, because I left the phone itself at my parents’ house on Sunday. Hope you worked out how to switch off all of the annoying recurring alarms, mum and dad!
3. ME
Remember the RED WEALS? That dry, scaly red skin that appears underneath my eyes during times of stress, and also apparently NOT during times of stress? The ones that no makeup will cover, and which make me look like I’ve been punched in the face, twice? Yeah, they’re back. I have no idea why. Not using any new products, not feeling stressed, not been doing anything that could reasonably have made this happen, so I can only assume my body just decided now would be a good time to make me look like hell. Thanks, body! Hate you too!
So, how are you?
A few weeks ago, I started using a new hair conditioner. It’s called ‘Radiant Red’ and as the name suggests, it’s made especially for us redheads. (And very good it is too, by the way: you should totally buy it. Unless, of course, you don’t actually have red hair, in which case that would be a bit silly.)
Anyway. The conditioner is called “Radiant Red” and trust me, this is not a reference to how my hair looks after I’ve used it, but a reference to what the conditioner itself looks like. It is red. Oh so very red! Radiant red, you could say. Or you could just say, “Oh my holy hell, I wish I hadn’t bought white towels now. And a white bathroom suite.” Because trust me, this stuff gets absolutely everywhere. One thing I’ve learned about myself since I’ve been using it is that I apparently flick my head around like a demented person when I’m in the shower. (WHY?) I know this because every time I use the conditioner, the bathroom ends up looking like THAT scene from Psycho. GOD.
Luckily, the stuff washes off. Not so luckily, I am the person who has to wash it off, which I guess is only fair, really, given that I’m the one doing all the head flicking.
So, yesterday I decided to have a shower while Terry headed out to walk the dog. I thought this was quite cunning of me, because not only did it get me out of having to be outside, where it is cold, it also gave me a good excuse for not answering the phone while Terry was out. Or, indeed, the door.
The postman arrived at the door with a package for me while I was in the shower. I didn’t even hear him knock, on account of how Rubin wasn’t there to throw a complete fit at the sound of someone walking up the driveway, so I continued to merrily apply my RADIANT RED conditioner to my hair, in blissful ignorance of the fact that there was now a package waiting for me. So the postman took the package to our neighbour, and a few minutes later Terry arrived home, let Rubin into the house and then headed over to our neighbour’s house to collect the package.
For reasons that still aren’t clear to me, he did not take his keys with him when he did this. So the door closed behind him, and locked, forcing him to knock to gain re-entry.
I, meanwhile, was still in the shower, still coated in RADIANT RED, and still completely unaware that all this had happened. So when Terry knocked on the door and Rubin started a hysterical barking in response to this, I was confused. Apparently Rubin was home, but Terry was not? Had Rubin made his OWN way home from his walk then, and somehow let himself into the house? What had happened to Terry? And why was Rubin barking hysterically? Was it… OH MY GOD… could it be that something had happened to Terry while out walking, and Rubin was, at this very moment, trying to get me to follow him to the scene of the accident, where I would no doubt find Terry stuck down a well, calling feebly for help while his faithful hound raced home for reinforcements?
Well, no. Terry had just locked himself out, and so it was that I was forced to abandon my lovely warm shower and run the naked gauntlet of the freezing cold house, scattering RADIANT RED as I went, in order to let him in. By the time I got back to the bathroom it literally looked like a massacre had just taken place. The walls were splattered with RED. The floor was splattered with RED. The ceiling? RED. (HOW?) The bath? Filled with a pool of RED, that I swear to God, looked exactly like blood. Seriously, I am still amazed at how far that stuff goes. I’m still finding bits of it now, every time I go in there. And I really wish I had thought to take a photo at the time but clearly I’d more pressing matters to deal with at the time, so all I have to show for The Incident is this:
 The Afterbath They were on the floor of the bathroom as I swept by them, and the photo actually doesn’t do justice to the sheer amount of RED I had to clear up. You’ll just have to take my word for it.
Oh, and that package Terry went to collect for me? Contained two more bottles of the RADIANT RED. I’m not even joking.
Tagged hair
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