Was there ever a phrase that contravened standards of accuracy so blatantly as this? Apart from maybe “going for the one”.
Here is a sample of life-altering recommendations that have fallen dramatically short of achieving that objective:
Courtesy of my Mother:
- Krill oil. The most recent ‘present’ she brought on her visit. Standard issue chocolate and biscuits have gradually been replaced by various anti-aging and life-extending interventions. It started with a collection of face creams for my 40th birthday. Subtle. I’ve since been handed down the third bottle of Centrum vitamins from all her three-for-two buys in Boots. For my nails, and my hair she regularly likens to the Wreck of the Hesperus. For years, I thought that was a Greek Goddess who had let herself go after too many nights on the sauce. My Mother is nothing, if not consistent. Now I’ve got Krill. It’s multiplying. And I’m losing control.
- A steel potato masher. You too? Amazingly energy efficient compared to the Teflon alternative. I bet your dinners don’t know themselves either.
- A slow-cooker. This from a woman married to a man fond of economising on the length it takes to boil a kettle, to a woman married to a man with an OCD-like propensity for checking all plugs are switched off. Good one.
- Emphatically imploring me to do the household chores on a designated day of the week. Housework. Now that would be radically out of character.
- The 5:2 diet (the age she fears I look)
Courtesy of my fella:
- Go to bed earlier
- Get my car serviced [not a euphemism for anything else]
- Give him a weekly shopping list
- Swap our lie-in days every other weekend
- Don’t cook at the weekends
How low-maintenance is this man? Christ.
Courtesy of my friends:
- Yoga
- An Ipad
- A Satnav
- A 4 week blow-dry
- A Parent and toddler group
- Designated ‘Me Time’
- Batch cooking
- On-line grocery shopping
- Mindfulness
- From Couch to 5k
- A house extension
From this lot, I regularly re-visit the mindfulness suggestion. Taking the time to enjoy the moment and be at one with nature has its benefits. Look at the lovely trees. Look at the beautiful leaves that have fallen from the lovely trees. Look at me just being among the beautiful leaves that fell from the lovely trees. Consciously getting all matey with nature. Look at me flaring my nostrils as I mindfully inhale the soothing country air. [Three minutes later]. Ah sod this, let’s go get a coffee.
From my colleagues:
- Get everything in writing
- Just follow the rules
- Ignore the rules
- Get your travel expenses claim in every month*
*Therefore guaranteeing the shuffle of notes from an ATM within 10 days of payday. Finally, we’re getting somewhere.
What I reckon it would take to not know myself:
- On-line personality shopping
- Getting my mind serviced
- Thrill oil
- From grouch to Special K
- The 4 second blow job
- Following my own rules
Then getting it all down in writing.
department of speculation 
I do like a wee laugh at bedtime! That’s a helpful bunch of folk you have there. I fall endlessly for every new mascara with all its promises to truly give me long luscious lashes. Lies, all damned lies.
Now this is truly disconcerting. Reading a ‘new’ post then finding I was here two years ago. Still not found the perfect mascara – eyeliner never works either. Plus ca change etc….
I have a few questions I might like answered:-
1.So, if your Mum is buying up shares in Krill oil, won’t the penguins starve?
2. Your friends are clearly reading too many Wimmen’s magazines. Have they not heard of books?? (And I do hope you’re not holding me responsible for yoga and couch to 5k)
3. Getting travel expenses in monthly is not the only way to get to the end of the month – child benefit helps too.
4.Actually, I too have discovered the joys of the metal tattie masher. Pity mashed tatties is my least favourite form of the potato.
1. She has a more worrying Solpadeine habit and is starved of excuses for why she needs them (permission from the pharmacist is required here, it’s fun to shout “have you ever had a fucking period?” . Especially if the pharmacist is a woman. It’s a codeine thing apparently. But it’s OK to nip next door after for a crate of spirits)
2. They just tend to hang around GP surgery waiting rooms, and long supermarket queues lined with Chat! Now! Fuck! etc. There might be a correlation between the two phenomena.
3. Yes! It’s like the little plastic castle in the bowl of my gold-fish memory
4. Do you draw patterns on your mashed spuds with your fork?
The male in our house uses the mechanical thing I can’t think of the name of, (mixer? blender? – and all I’ve drunk tonight is a cup of tea!) to mash, or maybe blend, the potatoes, but I stick with the steel masher when I do them. That’s because when cooking, my choices are always based on the following flowchart:
– will it go in the dishwasher? (y/n)
-if no, then who is the only person in the house who washes dishes in the sink? > me
-if the choice is between 2 goddam items that are not suitable for the dishwasher, eg, a mixer and a steel masher, is one thing simpler to wash than the other – eg maybe has only 1 part, instead of 2 parts and a blade? (y/n)
– choose the simpler item to wash>steel masher
Digging your scientific approach there, B. Blenders have too many fiddly bits excluding the additional 10 blades, 9 of which are never used for what the manufacturer had in mind. Could you consult your flowchart with the following query: Can you dry socks in the microwave? These are the sort of technical solutions my fella suggests for convenience. And he’s supposed to be smart. Allegedly.
My flowchart had problems reaching it’s DNS server apparently. But it’s back up and running now. I set it to “What would Dorothy Parker say?” mode. Here is what it came up with re. drying socks in the microwave:
Tuesday. Joe came barging into my room *at practically nine o’clock*, with a pair of wet socks in his hands, *dripping* all over the floor. He demanded to know how on earth he could go out when his socks are still wet. *Couldn’t* have been more furious. Told him to stick them in the microwave for all I cared. Started to fight, but *too* exhausted. Stayed in bed all day; couldn’t move.
That sounds like my ideal Sunday. What happens next?
Alarm went off Monday morning at 7.30am; *too awful*. Almost *dead*. Sent breakfast back downstairs, couldn’t *bear* to look at it. Spent all day watching Days Of Our Lives; or so it seemed, although the show only goes for an hour. It was *ghastly* but what else can a girl do? Tried to read a book; too agitated. Phoned *everyone* about the show tonight; no-one was home. Utterly *destitute.*
*freaked at art imitating life* Please, do go on…