"This Would Be Really Funny If It Wasn't Happening To Me," Part II

I’ve described how my luck always times out when the milestones of my life approach, and how I’m actually pretty lucky in the grand scheme of things, but I failed to mention the humiliating aspects of my lucky life – the way I literally can’t get away with anything. I would make a terrible spy or…professional sneaky, lying person…I suppose that’s still a spy, which goes to show just how terrible I’d be at that. I am the anti-spy. I am James Bond’s goofy, incompetent, little bit special, second cousin. The one not mentioned in the books or films because she was sent away for constantly dropping in during a fight scene and accidentally shooting Q, handing over England’s secrets to Russia and pushing James in the shark pool, in an attempt to simply get to her car.

I used to babysit for this family who have since moved back to Italy (probably to escape me) and every time they came home, they caught me doing something that was totally innocent, but I always managed to make look worse in my vain attempts to cover it up. (I realise this currently sounds like I was doing something to their children, so I’ll swiftly explain myself).

For example, one night I was a little peckish, so had a look in the fridge and found a box of Roses. Now, I only really like soft centres, so I emptied the whole box onto the kitchen table, at which point I hear the front door open, panic, scoop up the whole lot and launch them back into the fridge, kicking the box under the table. They found me running out of their kitchen panting, “Oh I was just going to get a glass of water but you’re back now. Shall we go? I’ll get my coat.” They will later have found an obscurely hidden empty box and a fridge pebble-dashed with chocolates.

On another occasion I was watching, ‘Sex And The City,’ and it happened to be the one in which Charlotte is dating a man who seems very nice but then unwittingly shouts out obscenities in bed. So, the parents walk in just as it hits that scene and find me watching a naked man screaming, “Oh yeah! You fucking bitch! You fucking whore!” on top of a naked woman. I quickly try to change the channel and stutter, “Oh no, that wasn’t…I wasn’t…it wasn’t…it was ‘Sex And’…I wasn’t…”

The drive home is silent.

These sorts of incidents are not localised, nor are they rare – just an hour ago I walked out of a supermarket isle and manically yelled, “Buttons!!” in a stranger’s face. I was simply trying to signal to my friend behind me that we should decorate our cake with chocolate buttons and, instead, marginally assaulted a builder.

I always manage to send texts to the people I’m gossiping about. The gym instructor always looks up just as I fall off the treadmill. The lift doors always open at the precise moment that allows me to swear in my boss’ face. It goes right back to when I was 3 and used to hide in my grandma’s kitchen and eat the sugar right out of the sugar bowl, thinking no one could see me, unaware that the entire family was watching me through the serving hatch. I can’t get away with anything.

So now I live on my little exile iceberg in the South Pole – the icy fish my only friends - wondering if James got out of the shark pool alive, if my family will ever take me back and toying with the idea that these little faux pas are the only reason my friends love me and probably why I can’t get a doctor to marry me.

"This Would Be Really Funny If It Wasn't Happening To Me," Part I

I’m due to get a train to London on Monday, followed by a plane to Australia on Tuesday, and with the onset of this nation-wide shit-storm it has become a possibility that my trip may be cancelled. Yes, the one that has cost me over a month’s wages (that’s 200 hours of work and 30 hours of driving to and from). The one that I’ve been planning for almost a year. The one that will allow me to be reunited with my best friend whom I rarely go more than a day without and who has been on the other side of the world for three months now. That one. I am not impressed.

Yet, I can’t help but feel it was inevitable. Because it’s me. This isn’t intended to sound like a, “Why me?!” moan, because it’s not, but I’m aware that, whilst most areas of my life are actually pretty good and I’m very fortunate in many ways, the big things in life always cock right up through no fault of my own.

Maybe it’s cosmic balancing for being so lucky in other ways; maybe it’s because I get so worked up and excited about the events that it provokes the Gods to scream, “Oh bloody hell! I can’t take it any more! Abort!!” Maybe it’s karma for my shocking cooking abilities, who knows?! But it happens.

It began, rather feebly, on my 18^th Birthday – the first birthday that really means anything in society and to you – your coming of age, a right of passage. I got a pathetic cold and managed two drinks before I had to call a taxi to take me home. That’s the perfect word for it: Pathetic. But enough to ruin a night I had been looking forward to for 18 years.

Then came my sister’s wedding – a day the whole family had been looking forward to for years and I was chief bridesmaid. The day before the wedding I began getting the flu (easily the illest I have ever been) and spent the night sweating and hallucinating on the study floor. In the morning my family decided I was too ill to go – feck that! I filled myself to the brim with painkillers and managed to make it through the day. Unfortunately, I took so many that I can’t actually remember anything that happened between arriving at the church and leaving the reception.

My 21^st came next – the one and only night I’ve had my drink spiked. I ended up being carried out of the pub (we hadn’t even made it to the club yet!) and my mother was called. I spent the next three days vomiting, thus missing my train back to London and the first three days of my third year at uni. Perfection.

And whilst none of my other trips have been ruined (although I did manage to get sunburnt inside Kenya Airport) I can’t help but feel the Gods have had a conversation along the lines of:

1: “Oh bugger, I’ve got a month’s worth of snow here. What shall I do with it?”

2: “Maybe spread it over a few countries so they can all have a nice white Christm…”

3: “Oh Christ! Mary’s getting all fidgety again! Make it stop!”

1: “Oh for crying out loud, hold on, I’ll just dump it here. On her face.”