Egg on Your Face (and everywhere else)

I had kind of hoped that after the last few years I had already reached the summit of public humiliation.

But no.

As I never actually get a proper holiday (as in one where you are relieved of some of your daily duties) I have a holiday project in progress whereby my children eat out as much as possible thus minimising the need for me to undertake such hideous chores as handling peanut butter and picking rice out from the cracks in the floorboards. For reasons of budget this means basically conducting a tour of supermarket cafes.

On Tuesday this project enabled me to reach new heights of shame when my youngest decided it appropriate behaviour to launch an egg mayonnaise sandwich over the railing in Sainsbury's Cafe.

This situation was made infinitely worse because of the fact that Sainsbury's Cafe is situated on a mezzanine floor, with lofty views across the shop floor, and the eggy-delight sailed onward and downward and into the newspaper stand.

A couple of slightly bemused gentlemen looked upwards but bearing in mind this Sainsbury's is nationally notorious for having had a robin living INSIDE the store (there were even Facebook campaigns dedicated to saving its life) they probably just presumed it was bird sh1t.

A woman behind me said 'ohhh you should slap him' but considering the fact that she had previously been wittering on about how the air ambulance was bringing 'outsiders' in to steal 'locals' hospital beds, I just scowled at her. She was actually outraged that she'd seen an air ambulance landing with 'Dorset' written on it. I mean the HORROR - people that might have been injured/fallen ill in a different county might CROSS THE BORDER and make use of a nationally funded major trauma centre...... That and the small issue that the air ambulance is actually called 'The Somerset and Dorset Air Ambulance' and is funded by charitable contributions from both counties....... Hopefully she'll fall sick in Devon and they'll turn her away for not looking local enough.

Anyway from now on I think I'll avoid egg mayo. This isn't my first run in with it.

Back in the days when I was pregnant and commuting daily on the Tube, I reached the end of a long working day and was rushing for the train when I realised if I didn't eat NOW I would either be sick or collapse (or both), so I ran into the cafe and grabbed the only sandwich they had left - egg mayo. I then jumped on the Tube train and realised that egg mayo wasn't the most appropriate thing to consume on packed public transport - but yet if I didn't eat I'd vomit..... So I kept the sandwich inside my handbag, snuck of the wrapping off, dipped my head into the handbag and took a surreptitious mouthful.

A large dollop of egg mayo promptly shot out the end of the sandwich and onto the suited leg of the business man rammed up against me.

Oh. Help.

This was almost as embarrassing as the time I opened a bottle of 'shaken up Coke' on the Tube just after September 11th and the soft popping noise followed by violent hissing caused people to fall to the floor and scream.

Anyway, the man looked down at his newly soiled leg and recoiled in horror.

I stayed very still, daring not to even swallow the evidence.

The man started to look, searchingly, at his fellow commuters.

My heart began to thud and I quickly formulated a plan that, if caught I'd inform him I was diabetic and it was a case of 'egg mayo or fall into a coma' (not that egg mayo is a particularly likely choice for a diabetic in trouble but hey ho, I hoped he wasn't a doctor).

He began to search more and more, all the time looking more and more furious (and who could blame him).

I bailed ou at the next station and stood, panting, on the platform swearing that I would never again get involved with egg mayo in a public place.

Clearly I should have taken my own advice....

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Irritations

Well here I am on 'Hospice Watch' and if I don't talk to you lot, I've got to talk to my mum and as she is currently talking to a mosquito, it has to be you lot.

Seriously. I've just heard her say 'you're right in my ear, you bugger, you are humming in my ear, sorry, but I'm going to have to squash you, now where have you gone now? Ahhh yes.....'

So either it's a mosquito troubling her or she's taken up 'Polite Dominatrix Phone Line Sex Chat' - and I know which is most likely. And it's not the one that pays.

Actually, I'll pause now whilst I hear her shout 'BUT YOU'RE LOCAL!'.

No, it's defiantly a mosquito, the paper just came down, hard and fast. And the phone's still on the hook......

Anyway here we go folks - HAPPY HOLIDAYS! My kids broke up today and we now have 6+ week of sheer unadulterated fun FUN FUN!!

My oath not to shout and to enjoy every tiny moment of these precious days (which I do truly appreciate in case you have no sense of humour and think I don't actually realise the magic of these days) lasted until about 3.25pm (10 minutes after school was out) when I was heard to bellow 'what did I just say about not making big noises!? SHUT UP' down the corridor of the hospice - approximately 10 times louder than either of my children.

Anyway - this holidays - family tragedy and other such crap aside - if the strain of the kids doesn't get me, the poo talk will.

OH.MY.GOD.THE.POO.TALK.

Let me just say NOW you can not comprehend the depth and breadth of poo talk unless you have ever held custody of a 5 year old boy child. Or possibly a girl (depending on whether they are into Hannah Montana or poo - I'll pause on making a judgement there.....).

If you don't 'get' just how all encompassing and random and just NUTS poo-talk is here is today's bath time, the songs mentioned are actually hymns. Hymns with bespoke lyrics:

Son 1 (singing in a lovely fashion): He's got the whole world in his hands, he's got the whole wide world in his hands, he's got the plants and the poo poos in his hands, he's got the whole poo poo in his hands.

Son 2: HA HA HA HA HA.

Me: Deep exhale, what did I say about poo poo talk in front of grown ups?

Son 1: Carpenter carpenter make me a wee, that's the work or some poo poo far greater than me. Somebody greater than you and me, put the poo pants in the apple tree,the flowers in the earth and the poo in the sea, they're by somebody far greater than you or me.

Me: ENOUGH!

Son 2: COCK A DOODLE POOO!!!!

Son 1: I can't stand the rain on my poo poo pain.

Me: And breath.

Son 1: We are climbing Jesus' ladder ladder, we are climbing Jesus bladder bladder, poo poo of the LORD.

Son 2: Who is the Lord?

Son 1: What?

Me: Who IS the Lord? In your song?

Son 2: LADY GA GA.

Me: Or dear LORD ABOVE, not this again.....

Son 1: Lady Ga Ga is ........................................... boobies.

Me: BATHTIME. NOW.

(10 minutes later as I try to extricate children from bath, by this time one glass of wine and 1 pint of cider later, under the distinct impression that parents get is wrong-diddly-wrong when they crack open the booze after bedtime - DO IT BEFORE - it's the secret to being able to get excited about 'The Great Big Little Red Train' for the 350th reading. NEVER will have the coupling-up of a load of logs to a wagon of old sofas sounded so utterly, endorphin fuelled, thrillingly FANTASTIC. It's like being back on that podium punching the air and thinking you can dance the world out of depression all over again - but with a little red steam train and a quaint sketch of a forest. Maybe).

Me: Right, out of the bath now (as I swing down the Thatcher's Old Rascal with the one hand not holding up a flannel, because this isn't my house and I can't find a towel).

Son 1: Mummy, if I'm going to get out the bath you need to know this very important thing.

Me: What?

Son 1: This icecream tub, with a lid (only the best bath toys for my children) contains my PRECIOUS water. NOBODY, especially not that toddler more than anything, must EVER DESTROY my precious water.

Me: Err, fine.

(Rustling of flannel and attempted drying of children ensues).

Suddenly.

Son 1: MUMMMEEEEEE, the toddler's got my precious water!!!

Son 2 (who is NOT a toddler): This is WEE WEE!!!

Son 1: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and thus takes precious water and runs, yes RUNS, with a rapidly draining icecream tub of water through the upstairs floor of my mum's house).

Me: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO (and thus pursues rapidly draining ice cream tub of precious water through upstairs of mum's house).

Son 2: That water is WEE WEE.

Me (under my breath): Jesus.

Son 1: Jesus CHRIST. If that toddler doesn't stop ANNOYING ME, I'll send him back from where he came from.

Me: I think I need to open another bottle.

Son 1: The water, water of life, Jesus gives us the wee wee of life......

My mum: Darling, can you bring down the Wasp-Eze, I've been bitten......

Me: Where are those mediational singing bowels when you need them?

Son 1: Go down to the city into the street, tell the people of Jesus, let his poo poos meet.

Me: If you don't actually follow the instructions and inhale Wasp-Eze , deeply, what does it do......?

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Interview Technique

Wow - you disappear into the fug 'hideous life' for a couple of weeks and can't blog and what happens? Loads more people start following you! (Virtually - not 'actually' - well I hope not- I don't want to wake up one morning and find 149 'fans' in the street outside waiting for me to make them laugh. It would be like something from 'The Life of Brian').

Anyway - hello everyone, lovely to see you, big shout going out to the blog-following-massive and all that.

Now before I go on, a lot of people have been asking me about two things. 1. My dad and 2. The MADs Awards so here goes:

1. My dad is currently in a hospice. Things have been immensely difficult for various reasons but tonight, at least, he is safe and comfortable and in his own way, happy, and I feel 'free' enough to actually log on to the computer.

2. The MAD award's winners aren't actually announced until September at a 'live' ceremony (in Bognor, no less). Very sadly I can't go for obvious reasons which is a tad gutting but that's the way life goes. So I don't know if I won anything, and no, I still don't have any bedroom curtains, and yes, that is trying at 4.45am when the goddam sun comes over the goddam horizon. I keep toying with the idea of a flight-mask but realise I'll probably wake up, think I've gone blind, have a panic attack and fall down the stairs (or similar), plus, I don't know if I want Husband with a Sad Face to see me like that. We'll skip all the other ways he's seen me, and just focus on the flight mask being 'not my look'. Anyway - thank you for all your support. Who knows - it was certainly worth a shot.

Anyway - in amongst all the hospice visiting, raising children, looking after my mum, trying to sleep past 4am crap - I also had a job interview. Random I know. It was only for very part time, 'come and go' type work but it's a foot in a door that I feared was rapidly closing so I couldn't say no. Even if the timing was a tad poor.

It went very well. If there's one thing the past few years have taught me, it's that basically, stuff like job interviews are nothing to worry about.

I took it all in my stride, perhaps a tad too much, but hey, you need to appear relaxed and confident........

Interviewer 1: Could you summarise your life to date?

Me: Gulp (thinking to myself 'they only know what you tell them') 'well as you can see, I'm a graduate with MARVELOUS experience across SEVERAL fields..... (waffle on for 5 minutes, leaving out all references to insanity, near death, people dying, random acts of insanity, gay pets and the fact I once worked for a man who bought me silk pyjamas in a special box and a bottle of 'Allure' before telling me he'd never once looked at a pornographic image).

Interviewer 2: Have you ever worked in a role where you have needed to use the telephone?

Me: (You weren't listening to a f'cking word I said, were you? How could you do any of those jobs and NOT use a telephone? How, for example, would you 'liaise with clients across the globe' without using the telephone? Rock up on the back of a camel and ask them to just double check you had booked your boss a suite in Dubai Hilton?). Errr, yes. I have lots of experience using a telephone. And doing fancy things with it to, like putting people one hold. And, erm, stuff.

Interviewer 1: Can you tell us what you understand by the word 'teamwork'?

Me: (Yup. It means having to deal with loads of other people, most of them a drain on your resources and/or a pain in the arse when really you'd just like to get on with it. People are either total muppets and make things worse or they are great, in that they make you laugh and stop you doing any real work, either way, team work is a BAD IDEA for the company as a whole) Yes, being part of a team is crucial to getting a job done effectively. The most important element of team work is communication (yawn...drone on like a robot for 2 minutes).

Interviewer 2: Can you think of a time when you have dealt with something which hasn't gone to plan?

Me: (Let out a involuntary guffaw of laughter and then frantically scrabble through mind to try and recall something which I could dare to actually share in an interview, but all I can see is blood, mental health units, crying people, small children weeing in very inappropriate places and, erm, that German guy in the Youth Hostel frantically trying to pump up my balls. I need to search deeper. There is NOTHING since I had children which is fit for interview-consumption) Erm, yes. I was once running a training seminar (something like 10 years ago) and when we got up in the morning the venue was under several foot of water. That posed some interesting problems.

Interviewer 2: Wow, yes, I can imagine. So what did you do?

Me: (Think YEE HAA AND PRAISE THE LORD!!! I haven't got to spend an entire day making an arse of myself infront of miserable gits in tweed. I can go home early and lie about on the sofa watching This Morning and eating cake) Well I immediately put in to place an effective and comprehensive communication strategy to inform those affected.....(i..e I phoned them all up and told them not to come and then stood at the top of the motorway sliproad with a sign saying 'event cancelled').

Interviewer 1: Well thank you for your time, could you just let me have your CRB form so I can photocopy it?

Me: Yes certainly (reaching into handbag feeling rather organised for once).

Interviewer 1: (Looks down at CRB form, looks confused, looks more confused, peers closely at what should be proof that I have no history of molesting children or robbing old ladies).

Interviewer 1: Erm, sorry, this is isn't your CRB form.

Me: Oh sorry (more like oh shit!).

Interviewer 1: No. It's actually a tourist information leaflet on boat trips to go Puffin watching on Lundy Island.

Me: Ah so it is......

Interviewer 1: Have you been? To Lundy that it is?

Me: Err, no (and to tell you the truth I have no idea how it even got in my handbag).

Interviewer 2: Well it's been wonderful meeting you. If you could just fill in the Occupational Health forms and I'm sure we'll meet again.......

Me: (Only if I lie on the forms).

Well it take all sorts......and something's got to pay for those curtains.

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