\t\t\t\tOwing to my last post I had become increasingly aware of a change coming over me, one that was quite shocking and completley against my entire nature…<\/p>\n
I was becoming sensible.<\/p>\n
It had started with the flower arranging evenings, then\u00a0planning\u00a0my Christmas shopping well in advance, then checking\u00a0my car’s\u00a0levels of\u00a0screenwash at regular intervals, and I had even been\u00a0taking Neil’s coat on outings in case he felt cold.<\/p>\n
Oh dear.<\/p>\n
The events of yesterday however came as a reassuring reminder that,\u00a0whereas I have\u00a0many additional\u00a0responsibilities these days (although some of the unecessarily self imposed), I still have\u00a0an overwhelming\u00a0ability\u00a0for the ridiculous\u00a0which\u00a0despite still taking me by surprise, nevertheless jollies life along.<\/p>\n
The first instance occurred when\u00a0returning a work\u00a0call to a Norweigen lady\u00a0‘Ottie Dottie’, an excellent name that I am\u00a0now considering for my first born (although a\u00a0seminar given by Dushy Large\u00a0has also made that a contender). On phoning Ottie\u00a0I was put through to a generic voice messaging system, immediately sending me into a panic for I am not at ease with such technology\u00a0and very much aware\u00a0of how much I sound like a\u00a05 year old child on a tape recording.\u00a0I tried my best to mentally prepare\u00a0what to say and in what order,\u00a0but\u00a0all\u00a0too quickly the\u00a0‘beep’ was upon me and my mind blanked…<\/p>\n
“This is a message for Socky Wocky”…<\/p>\n
Realising my mistake I laughed nervously, but one of those sort of embarrassing laughs that sounds like a congested farm animal, so\u00a0I cupped my hand over my mouth\u00a0to try and stifle the truly\u00a0hideous noise.\u00a0Sat in genuine shock, I didn’t really know what to do to recover the situation, so I hung on the line hoping to be\u00a0offered the opportunity to re-record my message, but\u00a0following the second ‘beep’, no such olive branch\u00a0presented itself.<\/p>\n
\u00a0A shameful moment came over me as I replaced the phone’s reciever\u00a0into it’s worn cradle,\u00a0although at the same time I was a little relieved\u00a0I had not got so far as to mention who I was and what institution I was representing. Several practices\u00a0in the kitchen and a cup of tea later I was composed enough to phone Ottie back, but this time wrote my message down beforehand and read it off\u00a0like a script.<\/p>\n
I do hope the lady has luck with her\u00a0dormer window.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
My second oddity of the day came as I dropped my feather and down duvet into the dry cleaners for its bi-annual dousing. The weather that morning had appeared inclement and so not wishing to be caught in a passing shower with my beloved bedding, I had wrapped it up carefully in several bin bags, neatly taping them\u00a0at the joins, and had arranged the ties in such\u00a0a way as to make a carrying loop.<\/p>\n
On arrival at the dry cleaners I pushed open the door to find the shop assistant nowhere in sight,\u00a0so made my way towards\u00a0the counter to push the bell for attention. On doing so however, my loafer caught itself in the turn-up of my trouser leg and I tripped, hitting my knee on an incidental shelf carrying shoe cleaning kits, and I ended up slumped across the counter, my midriff balancing on its edge. Furthermore in the midst of this impressive stunt, I had let go of my duvet bundle, which due to its slippery casing had shot out of my hands,\u00a0launched itself across the counter onto the floor, and had slid its way to the back of the room picking up speed as it hit the lino.\u00a0Meanwhile, the\u00a0shop assistant\u00a0arrived, stepping over my duvet parcel (still in motion) and made his way towards me.<\/p>\n
“Can I help”? he gestured, as I brushed myself down and sought to right the heavily laden shop display I had almost taken down with me.<\/p>\n
“Yes please, I would like to have my duvet dry cleaned”.<\/p>\n
“No problem madam, where is the item in question?”<\/p>\n
“Actually (pointing), its over there…”<\/p>\n
A confused look and a long explanation followed, but\u00a0eventually I paid my \u00a39.99, apologised for upsetting\u00a0his suede buffing and leather cream unit and left.<\/p>\n
Maybe next time I will try the ‘Persil Dry Clean’ shop down the road. It’s about 200 yards extra to walk, but I know it’s counter is nearer the entrance and with luck they won’t know about my amazing\u00a0aptitude to embarrass myself.<\/p>\n
Unless of course I have to ring them.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Owing to my last post I had become increasingly aware of a change coming over me, one that was quite shocking and completley against my entire nature… I was becoming sensible. It had started with the flower arranging evenings, then\u00a0planning\u00a0my Christmas shopping well in advance, then checking\u00a0my car’s\u00a0levels of\u00a0screenwash at regular intervals, and I had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-embarrassing-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alittlebitdifferent.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}