Jooj has now been �going out� with Babeemo now for about three weeks. I havent noticed any particular change in her, no hickeys, no starting every sentence with �Well, Babeemo says�..�, no marked falling off of grades at school. Nothing.
The only difference it appears to make to the running of The Palace of Many Sins, is that there is now a steady stream of callers to the front door. From around 3.15 each afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday, kids knock the door asking for Jooj. Usually Babeemo is with them (although he doesn�t appear to do much of the talking, just peers up through his silly emo fringe and looks winsome) but sometimes some of the other kids will come knocking too. Today, the ginger, gobby lad (who I secretly like as he can, at least, string a sentence together and he thinks my car is cool and offered to steal it), knocked at the door, accompanied by half a dozen other boys on bikes who stayed at the entrance to our drive � Ginge had obviously been elected to do the actual knocking and commit to the ceremonial ritual of �Talking to The Mum�.
Anyways, Jooj is at Shagnasty�s so I had a bit of a chat with Ginge and explained when she�d be back, gave him her mobile number and generally passed a couple of jovial minutes being Mum: Cool and Groovy, while the other lads snickered and nudged each other and were generally, umm, 12.
As they were walking away and I was closing the front door, I noticed that�err�my flies were undone, and had been so for the entire duration of the little chat with Ginge and the Cycling Lads of Coolness. Before I could even begin to curse my ineptitude at chatting to boys whilst flying low, I realised something even more awful.
Its been a busy week at the Palace, and some little chores have gone pretty much undone. Laundry being one such little undone chore. This has meant that I have slowly been running out of respectable underwear over the course of the week and have had to resort to wearing undergarments originally purchased for �use in the boudoir�, shall we say. This has given, ooh, moments, of amusement to L when he has seen me getting dressed for work (�Mmmm, work that board-room, baby� being the general gist of the comments!).
So, in short, I answered the door, to a bunch of 12 year old lads, with my flies undone, offering all and sundry a good clear view of chiffon knickers with a giant red satin diamante-embellished ribbon bow at centre front. Oh, and just in case you should be thinking �how can the bow be in full view, through an open fly?�, I would just like to point out that the bow is of such magnitude, and made of such substantially stiff satin, that it must be forcibly wrestled back into one�s trousers whenever one has been to the loo, a bit like tucking in a voluminous shirt or something similar. The fly of said trousers had been sliding down all morning (my �proper� jeans being part of the aforementioned EEC Laundry Mountain) so I�d already had to do the �parachute packing� manoeuvre a couple of times.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, a couple of hours later when I looked in the mirror, I saw that I had, whilst chopping onions in preparation for tonights dinner, rubbed off all the makeup from one eye and caused the mascara on the other eye to spread in a huge sunburst circle around my face. Ladies and gentlemen, the Flasher-Mum of Year 7 had also been channelling this look for the duration of the exchange.
*sigh*
And to think Id only just regained my composure after last night�s episode of �Stepfie Makes a Total Twat of Herself�, too.
We�d been to the Fancy Dress Party (there will be pictures, but we�ve still got piles of circuitry and bits of metal all over the floor a few computing issues, so you�ll have to wait � sorry!) and all was fine and dandy as we walked home. Anne Marie had broken her �walking home flip flops� and was barefoot � picking her way over the inevitable detritus that strews the pavements of the provinces; dogshit, broken glass, discarded remains of doner kebabs etc. She was trying to get Lee to give her a piggy back but he was resisting so, in a spirit of camaraderie, I suggested L give me a piggy back, too, even tho my feet weren�t hurting. He�s my husband and he loves me so he said he would.
I put my hands on his shoulders and said �one�Two�Three�HUP!�
At which point it all went horribly wrong.
As a teen or 20-something, falling over was generally viewed by ones friends as a bit of a lark. Young bones are bendy, young bodies bouncy, no permanent harm ever came to anyone I knew from an episode of falling over. There would be some pointing and laughing, particularly if there was some puddle sitting involved, or a flash of knickers, or valiant saving of tray of drinks or some such. Nothing more.
As a contrast, if you see an old lady in the street who has tripped on a bit of uneven pavement and is prone on the paving slabs with her shopping strewn around her, you�d have to be a heartless cur not to go over and make sure she�s alright, helping her to her feet and offering to phone her son to come get her, picking up tins of cat food and errant Cox�s Orange Pippins and brushing down her pak-a-mac for her.
Right in the middle of these two extremes is the following: 41 year old woman, quite drunk, dressed as Cruella de Vil in slashed-to-the-minge Velour and Dalmatian Fur evening gown, black and white wig and vertiginous white stilettos. She will be carrying a handbag and a camera. In the middle of the street she will attempt to leap onto the back of a 46 year old musician (also quite drunk) dressed as Clint Eastwood, complete with poncho hastily constructed from a Witney blanket and fabric paint. He will have a cigarette in one hand.
As she presses down on his shoulders and leaps upwards, he will feel the full force of her massive bulk (!) and, being something of a weed, will decide not to reach out and grab her legs in the time-honoured fashion. He may attempt, later, to use the smouldering cigarette as a valid reason for not participating in the piggy back leg catching manoeuvre but this will be bollocks.
He will stagger backwards and stumble. She, still clinging to his shoulders, will hurtle backwards towards the ground. She will then let go and continue hurtling, but faster. Her wig will fly off like a toe-punted skunk and land in the middle of the road.
She will land, unceremoniously, on her backside half in and half out of the road. There will be a certain loss of dignity but no broken bones.
Now, here�s the weird bit. As 41 is pretty much right in the middle between 20-something and �old lady�, the reactions of the onlookers will be a curious hybrid of the two reactions mentioned above. There will be a large amount of rushing to assist, with added brushing down, consternation and collecting and returning of belongings (wig, camera, contents of handbag) BUT there will also be a shocking amount of pointing and laughing with added insults and piss-taking bastardy. Next morning, friends will telephone and, whilst clearly concerned for your welfare and considering that you must surely have sustained some injury requiring visits to casualty, periods of bedrest or at the very least having some limb or other propped up on some cushions with a bag of frozen peas applied to bring down some swelling, they will still be laughing like hyenas on nitrous oxide and proclaiming you to be a dozy cow.
Don�t try this at home, kids.
