An 'Early-Twenties' Crisis

Last night I dreamt that I was dating an alligator, that lived inside another alligator, that was preparing to take over the rest of the world. I was swimming through thick black slime to find the man/reptile (complete with reptile face), scantily clad in black leather (me, not him,) while the theme tune to James Bond’s ‘Golden Eye’ played mysteriously in the background.

 

What.The.Fuck.

 

Stage two and I found myself on a beach in a harness about to propel myself on a zip wire towards one of those machines you find chavs using on a night out (the punch bag ones – sorry if you’re guilty) in which I had to whack with my fist upon arrival in my harness. There was a waiting audience who were terribly excited (think ‘cage fighting’ excitement) and gun shots going through the air behind me, reminding me of a highly dangerous Takeshi’s Castle.

 

I wasn’t even scared, nor in the slightest bit even mildly confused. In fact, I woke up feeling faintly aroused.

 

I’m never going to drink a pint of orange juice before bed, ever again.

 

The conclusion (other than the one above concerning orange juice, of course) is relatively simple to decide, but far more complex to correct. You, like many others, have found yourself in an early twenties crisis.

 

The tale-tell signs are as follows:

Ludicrous dreams in which you find yourself with a greater purpose are highly relevant. Anything involving death, survival, group orgies, laser guns, rooms with endless doors, revisiting old locations (like the vending machine with vegetables in it, too many choices) children (gasp - heaven forbid the C word)…

 

You make a plan to make a plan, putting the plan to make the plan in your diary just to help you feel as though you are beginning to come to terms with the everyday process of being alive which is… your life.

 

You then proceed to cross out the plan to make the plan – fuck plans, who needs a plan, why do you need a plan, what good is a plan, you are only young, you only live once, who says you have to have a plan, who wants to plan, a plan isn’t going to solve anything? Is it?

 

Is it? And what were we even planning anyway?

 

You then decide you need to re-think. “I need a plan,” you say. Oh fuck this.

 

Are you old or are you young, are you old or are you young? And then you realise you have forgotten how old you really are, and answer “18” when you get asked for your ID whilst buying alcohol to numb the pain of your ageing heart.

 

At least you got ID’d. Right? Right?!

 

The nature of being indecisive is in itself a symptom. Be warned! 

 

Oh who gives a shit?! Lets just go travelling! Let’s see the world! Your heart lifts with joy at the youthful possibilities raging through your loins, and then you think:

 

Fuck. I need some money. Hmmm. “Let’s make a plan.”

 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Career or travel career or travel career or travel career or travel?! Mundane job just to get buy, save a bit, then leave? Hmmmm. House or car? Literally considering a mortgage. I wish. What do I tell the neighbours my plans are? Everyone needs a witty reply. Just in case they care. Chances are they won’t. You are, after all, highly insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Oh. Bloody brilliant.

 

And we’ve all been bought up to believe ‘we can do anything, we can.’ Well then. Shouldn’t have given us so much bloody choice. Now we’re doing nothing because we don’t want to loose out on something.

 

They should have told us to be grateful.

 

Your Grandmother sounds shocked when you play the travelling card ‘what are you going to do to earn money out there, then?’ You reply ‘I haven’t thought.’ But you have thought. You have thought long and hard. She didn’t slave away at her job bringing up your mother just so that you could become a bar girl. Did she?

 

And so what if she did? What’s wrong with a bar girl job? And hey… they might not even have you anyway? Fuck.

 

You’re still secretly hoping to become an underwear model. Holding out. Dreaming the dream. Just. Got. To loose. Some weight.

 

Gotta do it before you’re twenty five though. Models are like Olympians. Get in their early before they sack you off to the slaughter house.

                                                            

Your grandfather is worse at your travelling plans (still too soon to suggest the model dream) – ‘what the fuck do you want to go there for? Come back in a bloody body bag you will, limbs in a different black bin liner. You should be grateful.’ The grateful comment is now resented. ‘Grandad’, you reply, ‘I’m only going up to London for the day.’

 

Jesus Christ. Thank God you aren’t that old. Yet.

 

So you went to the Doctors the other day and she told you that you’d put on weight. Shaking, you stepped up to those scales. The needle swung, a result of the boulder that had just been dropped unceremoniously onto its little innocent face. “Oh!” replied the Doctor, beaming. “My, you have put on weight.”

 

I have never seen someone so deliriously happy to deliver such uncomfortably bad news. Fat. Bitch.

 

So that was it then. Underwear model plans so rudely scuppered. It was that bloody contraceptive pill wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? It can’t. Have been. Those kebabs.

 

So you come off the pill. Well… something needs to change doesn’t it?

 

To men out there, if you are struggling to understand the difference that this little tiny lump of hormones can make… You know when Ron in Harry Potter has to wear the Horcrux round his neck, and when he does so he turns into a raging little shit demon out to destroy all friendly relationships he has with anything and anyone? Yeah. Well that’s the contraceptive pill. And every time your girlfriend is taking it she is swallowing a little part of Voldermort’s soul. How is that for celibacy?

 

Get a new piercing. Why the fuck not? You only live once?

 

Precisely. You only live once. You can’t fuck it up. But what if?

 

Questions questions questions.

 

And what if I don’t even want to go travelling? Sorry if I’m uncool, and settled, and I’m boring, because like, yar, I don’t want to go travelling, and oh my gosh, I haven’t seen the pyramids, and, oh my God, I’m so poor, I’ve never been to Thailand,

Like… ‘oh my God, please tell me you’ve been to Thailand,’

‘Erm… no I’ve never been to Thailand…’

‘Like, oh my God you’ve never been to Thailand?’

‘Like, no I’ve never been to Thailand,’

‘Like… never?’

‘Like… never.’

‘Like… you don’t want to go?’

‘Like. I’m not fussed.’

‘Like. Seriously. What the fuck are you doing with your life?’

‘Like. Seriously. Fuck off. And say ‘like’ one more time. I will literally punch you. In the mouth.’

 

Whatever you do. Don’t. Get married. In Vegas.

 

When your friend tells you she’s just got engaged everyone is smiling and patting her on the back and hugging and ‘like, seriously, that’s wonderful news, beautiful, wonderful,’ and your friends smiles all look kind of weird, and when you see your face in the mirror you realise that your smile looks equally kind of weird, and the rest of you look uneasily around at one another in turn and you’re smiling and you’re thinking ‘when the fuck do I admit that this has all just got a little bit out of hand?!?!’

 

Seriously?

 

Perhaps its time to make a plan?!

Customer Species

Customer Species

I suppose, working behind the bar at a golf club, I can’t really complain, simply because I am so wonderfully lucky and… grateful to have the opportunity to serve such a diverse range of people.

Ok, so… the general consumer market of the standard English golf club is that of the retired (lazy) lucky (rich) time-heavy (ohhhh poor things) male or female over the age of 65. Ok.70. Hmmm I might go so far as to say that perhaps 80% of the golf club customer population is over the age of 75. But hey – just because certain individuals have lived over a certain age doesn’t mean they all turn into the same stereotypical, stubborn, tight-fisted, set-in-their-ways, egotistical, sexist, hating-the-new-modern-interior-because-it-favors-the-younger-market-and-hurts-my-eyes individuals. Does it? Now. No. Actually. It doesn’t. I may be sounding sarcastic. I know what you are all thinking. Harsh bitch putting down the grannies. That isn’t the case. There is in actual fact quite a fascinating array of different human species that enter the golf club on a weekly, if not daily, basis, as part of a ritualistic routine surrounding a bizarre bubble of human life.

I can honestly say I am blessed to bear witness to such fascinating behaviour first-hand, integrating and actually being on first name terms with these complex human minds that provide an insight into their own species of habit. Without further ado I should like to introduce you to some of my favourite specimens, and allow you to search – and tick off your findings – at your own pace.

The Bar-Loiterer.

Ever worked behind a bar and been simultaneously desperate for the toilet? There is no-one else on to help you. You are alone and your bladder has started to throb. There is a customer to the far left picking up packets of crisps and nuts, scanning the drinks menu. Ok. So you can hold it, serve and go. You approach. You smile. He smiles. He breathes deeply. You wait. You tap your foot. You smile. He smiles. He puts the crisps down. He reads the back of a chocolate bar. You swallow hard. He turns away. Fuck it, you think. Run! Just before you reach the toilet, you see the man at the bar, waiting to finally be served, your boss sees, stares at you. “There’s someone waiting to be served,” he says, “don’t leave the bar with a customer waiting.” You wince. You approach. He orders a large cappuccino. A little bit of urine trickles out as you clench your pelvic floor.

The Misguided Moaner

It is a beautiful sunny day. The sky is a blue that you’ve only been dreaming of since horrid rains and grey clouds have turned your skin a pallid yellowy-ill colour. As the vitamin D filters through glass doors ahead you feel the magnetic pull of the sun wanting to lead you to happiness. Just before you step out behind the bar to wonder like a zombie towards the light, a harassed tanned looking species approaches.

   “Oh,” she says. “Ohhhhhh.”

  You stand, glancing between the doors and her. She looks at you. You smile. She shakes her head.

   “Oaaahhhhh.” She flops her head on her hands on the counter.

   “Oh?” you ask.

   “Too hot…. Too hot…. Out there.”

  You swallow.

   “I suppose you don’t feel it. In here. In the nice and cool.”

   (Biting tongue.) “No actually. We don’t.”

   “Oh. It’s too hot. Look at me – I’ve changed colour!”

   “Lucky you.”

   “I’m sweating. Actually sweating. It’s horrendous.”

  “What would you like?” (Hurry up, and let me go outside.)

   “Oh I don’t know. Something refreshing. I’m exhausted. It’s tough out there, you know.” (Gestures to the sun.)

   “Mmmm. I bet,” You say. You dream of cocktails, lying on the grass. Your feet hurt. You’ve been running around cleaning up after the poor old souls that are too hot to relax.

  “My legs” she says “– so sore.”

  (Your feet – swollen and blistered.)

  “You don’t have to go out and spend your day in the sunshine playing golf and engaging in the social hobby you clearly love.” (This is what you want to say.)

  “Maybe don’t spend your lovely (lucky, lazy, happy, horrid) day off, in the sun?” This is what you do say, bar the brackets.

   “Oh I couldn’t do that! Carry my tea over to my table for me will you? My feet hurt and my arms are shaky.”

     Fuck. My. Life.

The Over-Sharer.

Discusses loudly controversial topics such as abortion, the father of the baby, DNA tests, was she drugged or was she drunk? The smear test last weekend, Aunty Marjorie’s rotting left foot, weight loss and cholesterol levels, really bad morning breath, troublingly slow bowel movements etc etc.*

*The Over-Sharer is often also a bar-loiterer – choosing to have these conversations whilst apparently oblivious to the fact that a waitress is stood next to them waiting to take their order. Interesting selective vision technique.

The First-World Problem Fanatic. No sense of perspective.

“Oh no! I spilt my glass of water!” Oh no! There’s a tap with running water two feet away!

“Oh no! You filled my half-a-cider too full, how ever will I carry it to the table without spilling a drop?!” Oh no! You’re allowed to drink some!

“Oh no! I dropped my ice cream!” Lick it up off the floor then.

“Gosh! There’s mayonnaise on my tie!” Gosh! We have washing powder!

“Fuck shit bugger tits I burnt the toast.” Cock wank sweaty balls we’re lucky enough to have bread – infact, twenty loaves of them!

“Crikey I just saw Barry from the gym and I’m wearing no make-up!” Crikey, a) you have enough time to work out in the gym, b) you’re lucky enough to be fat enough to need to work out in the gym c) no make-up, oh God you look like a human! D) Barry’s gay.

The Sexist Whistler

Two actions from male customer – Whistle. And beckon.

Two actions from female waitress: Fuck. And Off.

The Ration-Grabber

Waitress: (Clearing plates.)

Ration-grabber: I’d like some tin foil please.

Waitress: Yes, certainly, what is it for?

Ration-grabber: the leftovers?

Wairess: Leftovers?

Ration-grabber: (pointing to a soggy strand of leaf on plate.) Leftovers.

Waitress: (high pitched voice.) Cer….tain….ly?

Oh dear.

The Mothers-Meeting

It’s just a mess of crockery and hair.

The Preacher

Leaning in surprisingly close with an outstretched finger directed at your ‘heart’ – obviously as a self-conscious young adult in her early twenties you misconstrue this as a bizarre attempt to touch your breast.

   “They misquoted me. MISQUOTED me. I said ‘faith in Jesus Christ.’ Not faith in religion. Religion is the terror of the world. Look at Syria, Egypt, look at all the wars, look at the death and the destruction and the violence of the world and say religion is good – Jesus Christ is the goodness, he who died for our sins.” (Deep breath.) Let him into your heart, let him find you…..” (Leaning in to your breast/heart) In your heart.” Touches you finally (and it’s quite a hard prod) just below your neck. You end up feeling faintly winded.

  Honestly, I found this conversation very interesting and, yes, I was enjoying the strength of the topic, however, when you are simultaneously trying to steam boiling milk, listen, formulate your own opinion, answer, avoid your friend who is looking pertrified of the preacher whilst hiding behind the recycle bin, and at the same time trying to avoid the accusatory touch of an outstretched finger directed at the left breast, the whole conversation at seven o’clock in the morning suddenly becomes quite a surprising handful.

Conclusion: Bar work can actually be quite a fascinating experience.

Reasons why you should never want to work in customer service

 Reasons why you should never want to work in customer service –

-          I’m sorry. Did your mother ever teach you how to queue? Yeah, because obviously I knew you were next in line, seeing as how you joined the cluster of swarming walking greed in a desperate bid to be the first for coffee. You’re like wasps struggling to get out of an upside down tumbler glass. No! Don’t worry! You’re not going to suffocate! I’m sure you will survive if you wait just three minutes for your regular fucking black filter with hot milk. 

-          Customer: “I’d like a black coffee with milk please.”

Me: “Erm…… ok, so…. A white coffee, then.”

Customer: (angrily.) “No. No a black coffee. I want it black. With milk.”

Me: “Riiiiiiiiighhhht ok. So….”

Customer: “Just make me a black coffee”

Me: (Making the black coffee) “There you go.”

Customer: “Where’s the milk?”

(Oh. Brilliant.)

-          Customer:   “Is this cream or milk?”

(Need I say any more?!)

-          Customer: “Is my bacon bap coming as a take-away?”

Me: “Did you order it as a take-away?”

Customer: “I just ordered a bacon bap.”

Me: “Right so… you didn’t order it as a take-away?”

Customer: “No, I didn’t. I just ordered it just now with the lady over there.”

Me: “Right, yeah, but… you didn’t say: ‘I would like this as a take-away’ when you ordered it?”

        Silence.

Customer: No.

        Silence.

Ok hang on one moment while I tune in telepathically with the chefs to let them know that you wanted a take-away. Because clearly we are very skilled in body language and we already realised that what you actually wanted was to take the bap home. Obviously we knew that. Of course it is coming as a take-away. We always read minds.

-          Customer: “Are the chicken fajitas suitable for vegetarians?”

(Are you safe to be out by yourself?)

-          Customer: “I don’t like nuts and you didn’t tell me the coffee and walnut cake had nuts in it.”

Me: Right. Well. I am very sorry about that. Would you like me to change it for another cake that doesn’t actually have the name of a nut in the title?”

(I am worried about your mental health.)

-          Management: “Can you just take the cake out of fridge and get rid of all the crumbs?”

(So…. you want me to throw the whole cake away then?)

(It’s a fucking cake!)

                                                                                                                                                (CAKE IS CRUMBS!)

-          Customer: “A tea with the tea-bag left out please.”

Me: “Ok, so, yeah, I’ll take the tea bag out for you if you’d like.”

Customer: No, don’t take it out, I want the tea bag out.”

Me: “Yeah, I’ll take it out.”

Customer: “No I mean – I want the tea bag out.”

Me: Ok so…

Customer: JUST GIVE ME A CUP OF HOT WATER AND A TEA BAG.”

Me: “Jeez. Ok, calm down. You could have just said that in the first place.”

-          Customer: “I’d like a hot orange please.”

Me: “Erm… a hot orange?”

Customer: (Looking at me as though I am stupid) “Yeah. A hot orange. They’re quite easy to make.”

                                                        (Is that a drink or is it literally an orange in the microwave?)

Me: (looking disgusted) “You just want an orange juice with hot water?”

Customer: “A hot orange.”

Me: “Yeah so a drop of orange squash and then hot water.”

Customer: (getting pissed off) “Just pour an orange squash and add some hot water. They are really quite simple.”

                                                                                        (Isn’t that what I just said?)

Me: (smiling) There you go, lovely.

                                        (That’s disgusting. Next time I’m going to refuse to serve you.)

-          Customer: (Pointing at any one item out of the one hundred in the fridge.)

Silence.

Me: Sorry. What was that you’d like?

Customer: (Pointing again.)

Silence.

Me: I’m sorry I can’t see what you’re pointing at.

Customer: The muffin.

(There are five different forms of muffins.)

Ok. Lets just get my telepathic brain on again. Oh! I know what muffin it is you want! It is the dickhead muffin!

                                                       So. Fucking. Rude.

The Three Best Things In Life

The three best things in life:

Wine, sex, and chocolate brownies. The equation to any happy female.

Of course, the wine and the chocolate brownies can be swapped in and out for other things. For example – beer, crisps, and sex. Possibly wine, beer and sex, if you have the following day off work and you’re up for a hangover. Or even, ‘David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet,’ crisps, and sex. Because David Attenborough’s voice is like sex itself, so you get a double portion. Plus you get the information. And the realisation that you’re not a very important member of the planet after all, which kind of makes you feel less bad about being a shit person and a solid underachiever.

Anyway, if one of those things is missing from your girlfriends life –

Holy. Shit. Balls.

She is no longer that sweet looking girl with the just-so-sweet-sounding voice who you used to believe would make an excellent mother to your children. She is transformed, a demon, a crazed shell of everything blown out of proportion – she’s like the contraceptive pill in walking form, bad PMS summarised in the outline of your previous beloved, she is the representation of her own reaction when you forgot (after a year and a half) what her middle name was, except this time she NEVER lets it slip, she is -

Get that hard-on, get that hard-on, COME ON BOY, please dear Lord, save me before she –

And what makes it worse is that when she is in this state, deprived of alcohol sugar or sex depending, she reminds you somewhat of your own mother.

Oh. So that’s the way the world works. And now you know why your parent’s marriage is failing.

Definitely doesn’t help matters. No. Makes it worse. Unsurprisingly.

You better get your mind in gear boy. You better get on that Tesco trip. You better get yourself aroused and in the game regardless of whether or whether not your girlfriend is wearing her ‘snuggle pants’ and has a massive cold resulting in an ugly blotchy face, because until all her needs are achieved - as you have learnt from the True Voice of Nature that is David Attenborough himself - she will be hormonal, needy, desperate and just plain ANGRY.

This is a warning.

It's THAT time of year again.........

It is that time of year again.

The start of the year.

 Back to work.

  

 Feeling good (?!)

Everybody feels good in the first ten days of January.

Fresh hopes.

Clean starts.

New clothes.

A whole NEW year……

Isn’t it exciting(?!)

Think of all the GOOD STUFF that might happen!

All the exciting adventures!

The strange NEW places!

The crazy NEW people!

All the NEW stuff!

Everybody just loves the word NEW!

NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW NEW !!!!

 (Am I even spelling it right?....... Who cares! Let’s invent a NEW spelling for it!!!)

(Such bullshit.)

No. The new year is only the New Year for ten days, tops. It’s all about the first ten days, really, isn’t it? Those precious first ten. The first ten in which you stare ahead at all the unmarked days on the calendar and you think ‘what great things am I going to achieve this year, on February the second?’ Or ‘who may I meet on October thirteenth?’ or ‘Perhaps I’ll win a cash prize in March?’

Anything after the first ten and the questions you start asking upon reviewing the steadily filling calendar turn into ‘who’s going to get divorced this year?’ ‘What member of the family is going to make the dreaded decision to have the dog put down?’ ‘Who is going to be responsible for the mad old deteriorating granny?’ And the bizarrely addictive question that crosses everyone’s minds (though they might deny it) ‘Which one of us is going to die this year?’

Anything after the first ten days of January and suddenly you realise you have already failed to uphold your new years resolutions, you’re definitely NOT going to succeed in losing that extra half a stone you gained ‘just because it was Christmas’ and NO, you’re not going to get that promotion at work because at the staff Christmas party you got too pissed, came on to a married forty year old (actually, you don’t know if this true as you don’t remember, but the main thing is IT MIGHT HAVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED) proceeded to vomit, and now you’re left with the realisation that you can’t remember how you got home.

We’ve all been there, haven’t we?

Haven’t we?

Haven’t…. Haven’t we…..?!

                                                                                                (Guys………………………………….?!)

I just want to snuggle with someone.

January is one big month-long hangover, because after Christmas and New Year, you literally need one month to recover.  It is still within the first ten days of January, and I am still feeling good about my many resolutions! I am bright, happy, attentive, excited, prosperous, WIDE-EYED, feeling sparkly, spritzy, spritely, I am –

Who the fuck am I kidding?! I am bleary-eyed, stiff, blotchy, tired, achy, paranoid about the way I acted at staff party night, in sight, I AM HUNGOVER AS FUCK

HOWEVER

The moral of the story is….

I AM STAYING POSITIVE!!!

Yes. Positive about being positive! Positivity breeds positivity. You breathe in oxygen and out comes positivity! You eat a piece of cheese and out comes positivity! You realise you will not succeed at your new years resolution to lose half a stone if you don’t stop eating cheese, but admitting this results in positivity!

And do you know why you are so positive?!

YES! YES YOU DO!

Because it is not the sodding shitty year of 2011 anymore!

Yes. There were many trials and tribulations during 2011 and I'm sure I am not the only person of my age who is happy to waver them goodbye!

MICROGYNON, to start. The contraceptive pill you should consider taking if you think that sex is worth depression.                                                         (It clearly is.)

Pop this pill and start crying when there is no milk in the fridge, cry when nobody opens the car door for you (why would they? You are worthless and irritating and good for nothing!)Cry because the cat that lives next door has only got three legs (its only ever had three legs.) Cry because… you are crying!

The onset of graduation – Everybody tricked you into thinking you were waving goodbye to education (hurrah, finally!) and into the exciting world of work. They forgot to take into consideration that a) you actually quite liked the bubble of bliss that was education; the unwavering belief that what you were studying actually mattered, the confines of an age where you could go out and party on a student loan and then complete your work in your own time*. Oh… and point b) There was no work. So…….

*Note the key phrase

Not only that, 2011 said a lot about you as a person, I imagine. For example, my mother, stepfather and younger brother decided to up sticks and move to Abu Dhabi. Rather than go with them, I stayed in England. This was firstly interesting, and secondly…. Mildy interesting. I am still, as it currently stands, trying to understand myself. From this recognition I have concluded I DO NOT KNOW MYSELF which apparently goes against all youthful gangster morals. Meaning I am not a gangster. 

Following that summary, I also had a birth mark removed from my face in 2011, because it was said that 30% of those particular little cheeky monkeys apparently turn out cancerous. I decided to put my cards on the table and resign myself to the scalpel… and the safety of the knowledge that it would stop bleeding, itching, pussing, growing (yes, I do believe it was growing!)  and all in all looking like a massive scab that would occasionally sprout a random lump. I was very fond of my birthmark, and it was a sad, sad day seeing it removed (yes, I literally saw it removed as it was directly under my eye.) From this choice of action I deduce that I am not a risk taker. Or in actual fact, I am just not bloody stupid enough to keep a piece of skin to save my face. I also quite like scars. So……

This last one is particularly hard to admit, but during 2011 I had to give up my captaincy of the RH Tom Cats, my University Cheerleading Squad. I hung up my Kaepas and waved goodbye to fitness,

HOWEVER –

Positivity breeds positivity, and I’m sure I’ll be coaching again (nod nod wink wink watch this space 2012 NEW SQUAD?!?!)

BOOM!

2011 is so inadequate right now it’s like the dot on top of a capital letter ‘I’, it’s like a designer handbag that you can’t keep pens in, it’s like the scar from a badly missed birthmark that ISN’T CANCER, it’s like…. Out the door and round the corner! And we are veering straight into 2012 with the complete knowledge that this year YOU ARE GOING TO BE WHOLE-HEARTEDLY SELFISH!!!!

Yay!

Dealing with friend envy

Dealing with Friend Enzy.

You are all staring at the bag.

  There is a stunned silence around the room, no-one even likes the bag, the bag is just a bag, an ordinary bog-standard normal-sized bag, perfect for bog-standard, normal sized items such as… wallets, and keys, and a comb, and a pen, and –

 

   Oh no. No no. (Tittle tattle chirping laugh like an irritating bird) You couldn’t put a pen in there, it just might leak all over THE BAG. And oh no. No lipstick. No way. Imagine! Lipstick! On this bag! This Bag! This bag that cost a lot of money (chuckle chuckle chuckle) no, you couldn’t put a pen in this bag, in actual fact, take out the tissues, who carries tissues in a bag like this?!?! This isn’t the fucking toilet, love, tissues, dear me, dear oh dear, NO I’M AFRAID I CAN’T CARRY YOUR UMBRELLA FOR YOU IN THIS BAG, IF YOU WANTED TO TAKE YOUR UMBRELLA YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT YOUR OWN REALLY CHEAP BAG SO AS NOT TO STRETCH THE LEATHER OF THIS HOLY PIECE OF FABRIC WORTHY OF THE WORSHIP OF –

DON’T - touch the bag so tightly. Please. Just look at it. Just look.

  So there we all are. Staring at the bag. But it’s just a normal bag. BORING. Come on. Oh… come on! Yawn! I’M YAWNING! Look at me I’M YAWNING, someone please bang a drum because I AM BORED. HELLO?! I’M BORED! I’m sorry, are we ready to talk now, because the silence over this bag IS BORING ME!

 ……………….    And you look around the circle, that is looking at the bag, that is looking STRAIGHT AT YOU, and you start to laugh because you think it is a joke, but then you turn the laugh into a cough because you start to feel really awkward, as you realise the bag has this goading little lure between its little beaded eyes, and now you’re pretty freaked out, because it’s got this little annoying smile on it’s tan-coloured hide and it is really pissing you off, and suddenly - it opens its little buckled mouth like a sneering back-handed slap round the face and it whispers –

  

‘Everything you never had….                      Everything you never had….’

     I can still hear its voice. Warbling like an old lady ghost.

You do a double take and you look around at your friend’s faces who are staring with reverence at this idle piece of leather as though witnessing the birth of Christ himself and you’re thinking…..

Fuck.

         It’s just a bag.      

                               Gulp.  

Guys?!    Guys?!    Shall we….?!   Do you want to….?!  Shall we just pretend…..?!    How about we…?! Or maybe we should just – oh fuck it the bag is real and it is staring at you clean in the face, very much like the extra half a stone you pretend you can’t see when you stand on the scales, or for example the spot on the left side of your face you can only see if you turn your head.  

It’s fine, don’t even worry about it, it’s only a bag. (Sideways glance)

How much did it cost you?

‘It was a present actually, from my parents.’

Gulp. Why?

‘Because I cleaned the car for them.’

Gulp. What the fuck.

 ‘Please don’t squeeze it so tightly. You’ll ruin the leather.’

(Fuck. Was I doing that? Me? Really?)

‘Leather is expensive.’

How much did it cost them?

Tittle tittle TATTLE tittle FUCK KNOWS.

               SPEECHLESS IN THE PRESENCE OF THE BAG. And now you have become one of them.

Overdraft.

You’re in your overdraft.

There’s a massive zero and it’s hanging over your head like a stormy rain cloud of road rage.

MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY–

DEBT.

TAXES.

A whirlwind of thoughts collide inside your head like there is a disco, your own private utopia, selling the bag, that would mean stealing the bag, that would mean betraying a friend that would mean –

I am a good person, a very good person, a very very very good person –

THAT BAG IS PRACTICALLY WORTH MORE THAN MY CAR

Think of Africa, think of poor places, think of all those poor people –

I AM SO IGNORANT I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT COUNTRIES ARE POOR –

Amber? Are you ok? You look like you’re about to vomit? Either that or you’re holding in a particularly large fart –

I am fine, I am wonderful I am fine –

I WISH MY PARENTS WERE RICH

I am a good person, I am a very very good person, I have two arms, two legs, twos eyes two ears a nose, a mouth, I am lucky lucky lucky lucky I am –

IS IT WRONG THAT I ACTUALLY WANT TO DO A SHIT IN YOUR BAG?!

Amber? What do you think? Do you like it?!

OH GOD THE HOURS ARE LONG AND THE NIGHTS ARE LONGER AND ALL I WANT IS A NEW PAIR OF GLASSES –

Sell it, sell it, sell it, WE’RE ONLY ANIMALS AFTER ALL AND SURVIVAL IS ALWAYS THE KEY - sell the bag, buy a new coat, THROW IT IN THE FIRE burn the precious leather, GET A NEW JOB, win the fucking lottery, fake your own death, set your house alight and use the insurance money and buy a bag that you can actually PUT PENS IN, I LOVE CARRYING PENS IN MY BAG BUT I CAN’T AFFORD THE MOTHER-FUCKING PENS!

…………………………………And then there is the friend that is simply always so lovely!

Yes! She can cook, clean, make her own hair bands (all the great things that make women GREAT) and next thing you know she is baking everyone cakes!

Cakes cakes cakes ‘mmmmm’ – just look at the way the sugar coats her pretty little lips, (and there you are, dribbling chocolate down your front and pretending you hate them whilst in reality you are trying to secretly smuggle another into your REALLY CHEAP HANDBAG –

IT’S NOT AS IF YOU NEED ANOTHER! SHE’S EATEN 4 AND SHE’S STILL A SIZE EIGHT!

Vomit!? Vomit?! Surely she must be self-inducing?!

No! Don’t do it! You don’t want to smell!

AT LEAST YOU’RE NOT PRETENDING TO BE A FUCKING HOUSEWIFE!

(Choking and spluttering),

 “I think they’re a little dry love”

(DON’T SAY IT DON’T SAY IT, YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THE JEALOUS BITCH)

(Holding breath to encourage watering eyes)

 “DID YOU PUT NUTS IN THESE YOU SHOULD KNOW I’M ALLERGIC!”

(OH WHY DID YOU SAY IT, WHY DID YOU SAY IT?!)

Random friend – “no you’re not.”

(THEY’VE GOT YOU, THEY’VE GOT YOU, OWN UP, OWN UP!)

“Yes I am, CHRIST I’M DYING!”

Silence.

You continue chewing and swallow successfully.

                Random friend –“No. No…. You’re definitely not.”

(The silence continues.)

“ANYONE FOR A GAME OF PING-PONG?!”

  And you can see it happening well into adult-hood, your mother standing at the curtains watching the neighbours wheel in their new television and their smashingly expensive leather sofas, muttering under her breath ‘and I deserved that promotion….’

You used to think your mother wanted you to do well at school because she cared, but now you are older you witness it first hand –

  “Your child got 10 on a maths test, mine got four. Ok, maybe it is down to a bad gene pool and unhealthy upbringing. Or maybe your child is just BORING AS SHIT and my kid has a good enough sense of humour at aged nine to realise that Mr James is a blithering idiot who remains a virgin and wanks over his MAC BOOK PRO

IT’S JUST A COMPUTER!

YOU’RE SUCH A KNOB!!!!

It’s ok though. Stay strong. Play to your strengths. Strive to succeed. One day you’ll buy that bag, and you will fill it with pens - and lipstick, and tissues! - and you will take it all the way to SOME POOR COUNTRY YOU ARE TOO IGNORANT TO KNOW THE NAME OF, and you will say – ‘yes, run little child, now you have the means to gather your FOOD and hoard the crumbs and keep dead animals inside the confines of this expensive leather, because apparently it is so expensive it simply must be made to the MOST HIGHEST OF QUALITY to suit ALL OF YOUR NEEDS.