Your bedroom is small and cool, the window open. The sky is darkening, it is that wonderful colour of a mild autumn, where the colours are rich and the evening is deep.
It is only seven pm. The house is silent. You can hear the floorboards creak as the breeze rolls in. You sit in shorts and a t-shirt despite the cold, because: a) you like feeling cold - it matches your emotional demeanour and, b) you are under the false impression that goose bumps aid a toned physique and, c) you want to kid yourself that it is still the summer of the year before; you can still fit into those skimpy hooker numbers; it is still acceptable to be drunk before five am, and, you, my darling, are living in a dream world of university.
The truth is. It is only seven pm. And you are done.
It is so, so quiet. Unnaturally quiet. You are no more important than the people in the jungle living in tribes, who still believe there is a God in the sea that brings the fish and kills with waves.
Maybe there is a God who does that?!
Makes me feel a lot more comfortable in self-sabotaging the telesales job. And VERY thankful I don’t promote cruises.
Have you spoken today? Hmmm. You open your mouth to talk, and you’re all croaky, kind of wobbly, like your grandmother. You whisper to yourself, and you watch yourself in the mirror until you start freaking yourself out. You have just been witness to what you would look like, had you been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is a rare thing to witness in life, but seeing oneself so deranged in actual fact helps oneself to realise why they definitely don’t want to give up on one’s life.
And that is when the rattling started…………………..
(After prodding your face to make sure you still had a brain in there.)
It is coming from your wardrobe. It starts quietly, like a mouse trying to get out of a bag. Then the mouse becomes a cat. Then the cat becomes a dog. Then you leap off your bed and grab the receipts that are rustling crazily on your windowsill, taunted by a breeze that is singing the demands of your outward costs.
It can’t be…….
(Awkward suspense ….)
Not the Zara Business Coat?
Your symptoms:
- Pale and shaky
- Repetitive dreams about killing best friends with scissors you keep in make-up bag. About ghosts that come alive in photos. And about fighting in the war - the trenches still remain but this time you carry a laser gun.
- Hence forth – an over-active imagination
- Telephobia (I’m sure we’ve already covered this one in an earlier blog entry)
- Obsessive daily routine structure. ‘To do list’ is now written on another ‘To do list.’
- Automated verbal reply strategy now fully implemented in one’s mind.
(“What are you up to?”
“I’m saving up money for travelling.”
“Where are you going?”
“Asia.”)
Fail safe plan that works better than your age-old joke “I don’t plan on being alive past next month.” This comment used to gain too much unwanted attention. People didn’t understand your sense of humour.)
- Chocolate addiction adding to weight gain
- HEARING A PERSISTANT RATTLING FROM YOUR WARDROBE.
Not the coat. It can’t be. Not. The. Coat.
For weeks now, this coat has been breeding in your dreams.
It was during the shop, yes – that shop – you know the one I mean, I mean the one where your friends had just landed their jobs and the sun was shining and everyone in the car was playing uplifting dance music and drinking ice cold coca-cola’s and even though it was nearing autumn it was still really warm! Yes. That day. And that shop. The one where you chewed your nails down to the quick and contemplated secretly how much money everybody would be forking out on their new work gear, and you wondered if you should join in too, you know, just to feel a little bit a part of it all??
Ah, that day. The shops reminded you vaguely of London Zoo. The large building with escalators here there and everywhere, like rope bridges in the monkey sanctuary.
And humans were scuttling. Everywhere.
The smell of success like animal shit, high pitched yips and yaps echoing around the confined space strategically planned to make you feel as though you had all the room in the world. But you weren’t dumb. You could see those walls and you could see that roof and you knew, didn’t you? There was no going back!
And then, inside the individual glass houses you could see them playing with their treats. Like magpies. Money money money! Oh dear oh dear, you really weren’t feeling too well on the day of this shopping trip, were you? Was it the sun? Hmmm heat stroke, I’d say. You were desperate for a drink at the water hole. A nice large glass of white wine….
They drugged you. You were sure of it. That wine! Tut tut tut. You were like a lion after the sedatives, warm and dozy and cuddly and, mmmm all the lovely clothes to play with, not a care in the world.
They shipped you into Zara, your actions still not entirely your own. And then you saw it. The coat.
The.
Coat.
The coat of dreams. The coat… of the business woman.
Your friend, otherwise known as ‘Fashionable-Friend,’ said with her beautiful smile they ‘were all the rage’, three quarter length, large collar, big black bold buttons, perfect for the mating call of a high-flying homosapien, the fit - just perfect, Fashionable-Friend – “Oh, it’s made for you!”; you tried it on, in a stupor, oh, lovely lovely lovely, aren’t you simply sexy, yes yes yes please, who wouldn’t employ me in this!?
As you give a twirl the zoo workers are clapping like encouraging penguins trying to lure in the fish, and you’re swinging around like it’s some kind of fucking ritualistic initiation into the wonderful working world of the powerful woman.
And…..
Well. Not much else to be said really. Except.
They. Tricked. You.
Eighty-five pounds. Eighty. Five. Pounds.
Eighty.five.fucking.pounds.and.100.spent.on.car.tax.
Your diagnosis – Zara Coat Guilt.
You fling open your wardrobe, tear the coat off its hanger and make a vow – if you are still unemployed within the next five days, that is it. You are taking it back. It’s there like a little laughing demon haunting you while you sleep – ‘you can’t wear me, you can’t wear me, na, na, na, na, na. ‘
Who goes into London for a casual shop wearing a suit? NO-ONE.
Who goes into their blasé (yet to be confirmed) waitressing job in a business coat? LOSERS.
You know your rights. Just avoid the white wine.
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