Bathroom banter.

Have you ever walked in on someone while they were on the toilet or naked, and then taken a bit too long to walk out so that it remains awkward forever? It was clearly unintentional but ‘the linger’ suggests otherwise, and so the next time you see the person, you talk far too fast and reveal more than you should, often commenting on some aspect of their anatomy e.g.

‘My assignment was so hung...I mean, hard’ (apologies for the amount of innuendo!)

‘The chicken breasts were really pert. Pardon me, tender’

Now that I have adequately painted a picture, imagine how much worse it gets when you have a bath with someone. This has happened to me before. It was beyond my control. A few friends have suggested that had I gone to church that day, my resolve would have been stronger. I disagree. I think the stars were in a lathery alignment; there was no escaping ‘the bath’, as it shall now be referred to.

I remember the day oh so clearly. It was boxing day, and I should have stayed at home and looked for presents to unwrap. Unfortunately, I let my fling (let’s call him Lake Alfred, Alfie for short) convince me that an afternoon coffee was a pleasant alternative. Given that Alfie and I had never been really intimate, other than teenage ‘making out’, I was rather relaxed about the whole affair. In my mind, we would actually have coffee, a kiss and a cuddle, and I would return home. I arrived at our rendez-vous, which happened to be Alfie’s apartment. Error number 1. Alfie let me in, his delightful naked self wrapped in the smallest towel ever. Clearly I had driven to his abode far too fast. Error number 2. I gingerly entered the apartment, warning bells going off everywhere, even in my toes.

Alfie: Sorry darling, I’ve only just got back from training and haven’t had a shower. I was just about to have a bath.

Me: Oh lovely. I’ll wait. Take your time. (Being too available: error number 3).

Alfie: Excellent. Actually, rather than rush, why don’t you join me?

Oh so many bells were ringing, my mind sounded like an English cathedral at high noon!

Me: Eeeeeeer... (My sheepish self is more attractive than it sounds).

He disappeared into the bathroom. I stood there for about 10 seconds, and then asked for a chair. Error number 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. I sat on the chair that materialised from thin air, chatting incessantly before being rudely interrupted by Alfie laughing.

Alfie: Babe, you really are the cutest thing when you’re nervous. Do you mind giving me a back rub?

Me: I guess not. Error 9...what is wrong with me?!

I dried the edge of the bath with a towel, sat down and swang my legs into the bath – error 10. I was obviously wearing a dress (error 0...1 has already been taken up).

Alfie: Your dress will get wet. Come on, join me.

Countless errors happened at this point, and next thing I knew, I was stripping, he was watching me. Then as if it had a mind of it's own, my big old butt approximated the seat and my legs swung themselves into the water. I was now seated in the bath, taking advice from Carrie (SATC) in my head, and trying to be ‘cool with it’. Let’s round up the error count to 50.

So Alfie and I chatted, and not much else, for about an hour. I got dressed, burnt myself with an espresso, and drove back home, laughing and shaking my head the whole way. We are no longer seeing each other, for which I blame the bath and myself entirely, given the rather impressive error count notched up. The worst part is because we never slept together and a bath is fairly uncharted fling category, things are incredibly awkward. Every time we meet, it feels as though we both turned up to an Adam and Eve themed party in our birthday suits, and no one else did. It has also taken me about 2 years to enjoy a bath again, alone of course.

My advice to all strugglers out there: make sure you have a shower at home, and if you ever find yourself thinking about a bath, you better damn well run really fast in the opposite direction, or perhaps sleep with the boy. There are 1001 rules on how to behave after such an event. With the bath, however, it’s just you, me and Carrie; mine was a disaster and Sex and the City shows that it never works: Carrie and Aidan most definitely ended.

Hey, but that's just me! Maybe you'll have better luck. May the body scrub be with you.

All the stupid things that wine makes me do.

I tend to say exactly what I am thinking, which often happens to be an outrageous diatribe against whatever happens to be in my line of vision, be it a human being or a wall. My friends are pretty used to it, but I think it does put off new acquaintances. Oops.

I like to hold my phone, put it in my pocket, take it out, look at it, check if I have any messages, check my voicemail, and then the unthinkable happens: I call people. I text them if they don’t pick up. And one guess as to what I say? Yes, that’s it: exactly what I am thinking. I very often never recover from these situations.

I clean when wine is involved. This may include doing the dishes, making beds, arranging all my sweaters in order of thread thickness and colour, shirts in stripes and plains, boxing shoes...but my all time favourite cleaning wine move yet is the 2 am Hoover. No explanations necessary.

I rarely have run-ins with 4 slices of toast in a single sitting, but a little bit of wine in the system makes me feel as though I am in it for the record of the most bread consumed at once.

I sing. Loudly (and very very badly).

The ‘touch-up’ is another classic, one that we’ve all spotted at some point. A girl rummages through her purse and out comes the lip gloss. She attempts to put this on but realises that her hand doesn’t quite know where the lips are and she needs an assistant...the bathroom mirror in the club. She teeters on her heels to the toilet (on the other side of the dance floor of course), takes out her mascara and spends about half an hour touching up her make-up, which is ironic given the club is dark, she has the camera in her bag and is the only one taking photos, so absolutely no one will see her or remember that imperfect smidge of eye shadow. Ah wine, thanks again for that night out spent mostly in the toilet.

The Winebook message, or ‘like’ or comment. I leave you to decipher.

I don’t often cry, but a nice bottle of Shiraz often makes the blue door resemble ‘the sky on the day I got my very first bike and the boy that I was infatuated with taught me how to ride along the garden paths and held my hand and it was all so sweet...’ somebody pass the tissues please. Thanks. It is unfair to solely blame wine for this: gin and vodka are guilty parties.

The worst thing about wine though, is the fact that it makes you think MORE is good. Not only that, but it’s a sneaky little bugger: it doesn’t annihilate one’s ability to pour. Vodka and gin are good at this, you’re co-ordination and ability to open or pour any more drinks diminishes at a rate that is proportional to how much you drink. Wine does the opposite: it enhances techniques of intricate tasks, such as using a cork screw, sending texts, and typing emails. Evil little... Pkeaseee psas me thd xinf...

Mecontentement....

I discovered that I am a little opinionated. I say a little, that might be understating things. Here are a few things that annoy me, and the things that go through my head but are never said out loud.

1. Capital letters in text messages, emails or instant messages, not associated with a proper noun, start of a sentence or acronym. WTF?!
2. Actually, poor grammar is quite annoying. There’s a lot to be said for being well spoken: at least you won’t constantly need to prove that you’re not an idiot, which is what we all think when someone says ‘f’ instead of ‘th’ i.e. Souff London. Seriously?!
3. Dirt. Dirty people. Dirty things. Is there any reason the kitchen sink or the wall behind the sink, or the cooker, or the microwave or kitchen floor should be dirty?! Only someone with desires to be a rat or a pigeon would find this a tenable situation. Your pick. This also applies to the toilet or shower/bath: clean after use should be intuitive; they are self-cleaning after all. If there is still evidence of your person in the room after you use it, you’ve done a crap job at cleaning yourself.
4. Crocs. The most disgusting shoes in the world. Uggs worn outdoors, but perhaps I fail to understand this fashion trend.
5. Rosé wine. Make your mind up.
6. Indecisiveness. The only time this is acceptable is when searching for a bar, club or restaurant, or when looking at a menu. It is simply frustrating at all other times- if it’s not going to kill you, freaking pick one already (I occasionally fail to take this advice and annoy myself).
7. I hate not being able to eat dessert first. Argh. I might do something about this soon.
8. Bad music. And any song that has anything to do with Pitbull.
9. English sports fans. Unless they watch golf, in tweed, with huge umbrellas. Then, I love them.
10. Moody friends. If you’re annoyed, tell me. If I’ve messed up, I’ll often feel like an idiot and apologise. If I haven’t, voicing your issues will help you come to the same conclusion about yourself. Either way, get over it. We’re over 20 and the end of our lives draweth nigh.
11. Conversations about religion and politics with people you don’t know. Judgemental.
12. If you are going to argue for the sake of it, or for something that you know nothing about or care little for, do it away from me. All I can think about is sharpening a steak knife and slowly removing your lips so that anything you say will sound funny, and then I’ll probably call you an idiot. Just for banter.
13. Holding hands and PDA in general: if I let you put your sweaty phalanges around mine for an extended period of time without feeling like the world is ending, I seriously love you.

Another instalment of annoying things will come your way soon. I need a month to find more things that I feel strongly about (though one may rightly conclude that I don’t need that long).