It just shows you that some people are never satisfied. Today the kids were at school, Jason went back to work for the first time in over a month and Oscar spent quite a lot of his day in bed catching up from his teething troubles. You think I’d have been leaping around like a gazelle, enjoying my freedom and doing all kinds of wondrous things (albeit in my own house, due to me not being that relaxed a parent and thinking I should probably stay within earshot of the boy). What did I do? I spent a fair bit of the day feeling rather lonely and a bit shruggish. Typical! It will probably never happen again. I definitely failed to carpe diem in a big way.
Then when the kids did get home from school and Oscar finally woke up from his marathon nap I spent several hours cursing them for talking to me in every moment of wakefulness and demanding my attention for their garden based acrobatics. I have finally pinpointed myself on one of those ‘what type of person are you?’ charts. I’m an unsatisfied and unsatisfiable ego maniac, with control issues and impossibly high standards, which even I can’t meet. I do make good cakes though in my favour. There has to be a redeeming quality somewhere.
So, that’s mostly been my day today. I did change some bed sheets in a desultory manner and do some more of the never ending round of laundry/washing up/cooking that constitutes the daily life of a hausfrau. In between I read a book for my course entitled ‘Leonardo Da Vinci: Renaissance Man’ (yes, apparently he was the ONLY man in the entire duration of the Renaissance. And he wore pink frocks and tights. They were going through a very lean period masculinity wise), which was a bit rubbish, but had lots of pictures so only took a couple of hours to motor through. I also finished James Frey’s Bright Shiny Morning which I had to review, so I duly did. Pretty good, quite compelling, but rather grim. Should not be read whilst operating heavy machinery or when you’re feeling a bit under par. Unless you want to feel more under par that is, in which case, knock yourself out.
Oscar has come out in interesting spots today. I’m not sure if I misdiagnosed the teething, and his temperature was in fact due to spotitis, the spots are part of the teething, or he’s developing heat rash (it doesn’t look like heat rash). Much to my enquirers’ disappointment, it is not pointy either. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, his temperature is down and his appetite is well and truly back, so unless he starts frothing at the mouth or turning into a giant spot I took the considered medical route of ignoring it and hoping it goes away. If he is spotless tomorrow I shall feel incredibly buoyant and justified. If he is one giant spot with hair I will feel very, very guilty and then undoubtedly have to explain my motives to an ignorant gp who will then go on to make me feel more guilty than ever. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
The most exciting thing I have done today is lie to Andrea’s dentist for her. I hadn’t really planned on it, in the grand scheme of things, but when the opportunity came up I seized it and ran with the ball. I got an emergency e-mail from Andrea late last night. She’s still in Madeira with a load of hard drinking methodists and her mother (don’t ask), and it turns out that she also has killer tooth ache. She asked me if I would book an appointment with her dentist for when she gets back on Friday. She can’t do it because as with all health stuff it takes ages to get through on the phone, and waiting on hold for twenty minutes from Madeira via a mobile phone is going to cost more than the holiday. She can’t wait because her dentist books up quickly and she wants an appointment asap, not three weeks next Friday if there’s a cancellation, which I completely understand. She already went to see someone and got some antibiotics but they’re not working, and so it is quite an emergency style emergency. She gave me lots of verification information so they wouldn’t get suspicious. As I said, I quite enjoyed the idea of lying to health professionals so I jumped at the chance.
Here is where the moral comes into play people. Never, never lie. It’s a tangled web of deceit we weave and things went horribly pear shaped. You see, I decided that rather than go on about all the rigmarole I’d just told you, I would ring the surgery, say that I was Andrea, answer all the right questions, and bingo, appointment is a male relative called Robert. Not so. I don’t know quite why, because at my dentist that is exactly what would happen, but here they were very, very reluctant. First I had to pass all the ‘I am Andrea tests’ which I did with flying colours. Then she asked me if I’d finished the antibiotics. Stupidly I said no. Then she said who had I seen before? Now I idiotically assumed that Andrea had seen her own dentist before she went away, so I said his name. Turns out he’d been on holiday for two weeks and it couldn’t have been him. So I said that I couldn’t remember. Then she asked me if it was a man or a woman. I said I thought it was a man but I couldn’t really remember (by this stage she must have been pretty sure I was drinking heavily). Then she asked me what was the matter with my tooth. When I said it was an infection that really wasn’t good enough. I was put on hold for ten minutes. She then went and checked Andrea’s dental records and asked me: ‘Is it the same thing you came in for last time?’ I wanted to answer: ‘How the bloody hell should I know? I’m not even really Andrea.’ I resisted, feeling that it probably wouldn’t further my cause any. By this time I was sweating and had developed a nasty twitch in my left eye. I was also cursing Andrea quite heavily.
Then she felt the need to ask me again about the antibiotics. I said I’d finished them, at which point she got really fierce and said that I hadn’t said that earlier. I admitted that I was rather confused. I said I was in a lot of pain, and I was on holiday, and that I had a small boy clinging to my leg who had just filled his nappy and I really needed to go right now (the nappy bit was the only bit that was true at this point). She didn’t like it, but eventually she coughed up an appointment on Friday morning. She was not happy.
I then rang Andrea to tell her that because of me her dentist surgery now think that she is either mental in the head, off her head on drugs, or a possible criminal (and with a baby she didn’t have before who fills his nappy at inopportune moments), but that I did manage to get her appointment and that she owes me a billion lunches. Turns out that she saw a dentist in Madeira, which is why they had no records of her at her own dentist and why the fierce appointment lady was beginning to turn the thumb screws on me. It’s not an easy life being an out and out fibber. I’d be absolutely crap as a double agent. I can’t even remember my own name half the time. Imagine the chaos if I had two…
I try not to lie too often for this very reason. I’m good at lies by omission and white lies to protect those I love (‘It’s a fabulous hat, everyone wants to look like the woman behind the deli counter at morrisons these days type thing), but big whoppers are just too, too difficult. I have to admit to a strange lying streak one day though. It was when I was working and actually had a job where I did things like lunch meetings etc. I had dropped the kids off at school and had to get into town to meet this person for lunch at a fairly glamorous restaurant. I dressed carefully and then headed into town. Luckily I was quite early as I had a few things to do beforehand. I caught sight of myself in the mirror in between jobs and realised I hadn’t actually done my hair at all, and although the neck down was fairly presentable, the head bit was definitely more Wurzel than Posh.
I zoomed into an expensive looking hairdressers and demanded that they wash and straighten my hair for me. The woman was, as hairdressers quite often are (and with apologies to all you mensa registered hairdressers out there), pretty vacant. I get so bored of telling them where I’m going on my holidays and no I don’t watch Eastenders etc that when she started talking to me I just randomly started making things up. To be honest, it really rather took me by surprise. After a few minutes of feeling hideously guilty for deceiving this poor woman I decided to relax, got into my stride and sat back to hear what amazing guff could spout forth from my mouth. Turns out that I was a hyper successful marketing manager, but that I was rather stressed at the moment because I’d not long had identical twins who were keeping me up all night, which was why I’d forgotten to do my hair. Fancy! Naturally, I can’t ever go back in there again, just in case she recognises me and asks me how the twins are doing!
