More chuckle-fuel for my inability to be a grown up.

So, I recently had two phones stolen. Separate incidents. Within ten days. Admittedly, I use the word stolen very loosely. Misplaced and not returned is a little closer. Welcome to Jo'burg, I thought.

(Though, in fairness, if I dropped my phone in Croydon or Hackney or some other cracky borough of London I'm fairly sure not only would I not get my phone back, but a pirate-y looking hoody armed with a flick knife and those stupid eyebrows with lines shaved out of them - number of mobiles thieved, perhaps - would probably loudly mock me with it before sloping off. Hoodies don't run.)

My parents, upon me timidly confessing the whole debacle over Skype, are now wildly concerned for my mental health. I've been reduced to a four year old. Every time I say I'm going out somewhere I get a flurry of panicked messages stating that I MUST make sure I zip my bag up, I MUST be careful when going down minor slopes (more on that later), I MUST not get my phone out in public and I MUST make sure I don't lob it on the braai. Honestly, I'm waiting for my mother to ask if I've made sure I've gone to the loo before getting in the car and whether I remembered to brush my teeth this morning. In their defence, managing to steal/lose/chuck two phones in the space of ten days is insufferably stupid. I'm just grumbling as I'm very aware that this will be remembered FOREVER. My mother is an elephant. (A beautiful, long limbed, Tai Chi practising elephant but a never-forgetting elephant nonetheless.) She still cheerfully, with just the teeniest hint of malice, recites to others about the time that I brutally savaged her Sounds of the Sixties cd. *coughs* A DECADE AGO.

Yes, I scratched it.

But I was fourteen and it was very uncool to complain about lame, grown up things like using a cd as a coaster when the girls in your dorm borrowed your stuff. This, however, has been used as a reason to NOT let me do something on countless, frankly irrelevant times.

Lottie: May I please have seconds?

Mummy: Nope. You scratched my Sounds of the Sixties cd.

***

Lottie: Henry just catapulted himself into my bedroom, without knocking, and repeatedly fired at my head with his BB gun.

Mummy: Well, you did scratch my Sounds of the Sixties cd.

***

Lottie: I think I might go and get my hair done this weekend, actually.

Mummy: YOU SCRATCHED MY SOUNDS OF THE SIXTIES CD.

***

You get the point.

So I know I'm not going to hear the last of this for a l-o-n-g time. In my defence, it all stems from an innate clumsiness, as opposed to carelessness. I will fall over anything. I will drop things. I will accompany all of these little foibles with a noise that sounds as if my voice is lunging dramatically as it wobbles out of my throat. I have never been, nor will I be, dainty. I'm rather like an over excitable springer spaniel that falls over itself a lot. It was quite cheek-squeezing adorable when I was eleven, only now that I'm twenty four it's exasperating. Cue my second mobile phone steal (the first one was stolen by a ninja - I didn't even notice as I merrily la la la-ed along to my ipod, the cruelty of the situation totally missed by my scatty self) of the ten days, that from henceforth we shall NEVER AGAIN MENTION, where I managed to fall over the most pathetically small decline on the road you've ever seen and whack my knee, rip my favourite jeans, bash my feet and bleed all over my Havainas in the process. Why I decided to break my fall with my knee is totally beyond me but there you go. I dropped the phone but was far too intent on doing the "jump up" that people do when you fall in public.

Note: People must not be able to witness your hideous, red faced shame for longer than about six seconds.

Hobbling down the road I discovered I had deposited my replacement phone on the floor along with my dignity and, despite doing an impressive Frankenstein-like lope back up the road, I was too late. It had gone. *sniffs*

So my wonky knee is ugly reminder enough of my alarmingly frequent acts of astounding intelligence. People's looks of abject horror and disbelief are not welcome, thank you very much. Richard Curtis would find the whole thing utterly captivating and write a deliriously funny yet touching in all the right parts screenplay about me. So there.

Faddy diets killed my bank balance.

I've become a Jeremy Kyle episode. *wails*

You see, I never seem to have any money.

Fine. Slight exaggeration. Sometimes I have money. But it's for such a short amount of time that I can basically break the average month down to three days of skipping, flashing (steady) huge smiles at strangers, cooing at small children in supermarkets and saying YES to everything - juxtaposed with twenty-seven murderous days of walking around with a permanently dejected air, sighing dramatically, claiming found pennies from between my sofa cushions and scowling at other people's far more exciting, MONEY FILLED plans.

Other then the glaringly obvious fact that I happen to work in an industry that pays you in penny sweets and buttons, I tried to work out why this was the case. Why do I never seem to have any money? That's right.

Faddy diets.

Some girls do shoes, others do Touche Eclat. I do 'interesting' ingredients. 'Interesting' ingredients and an uncomfortable relationship with my wobbly bits, however, burn a nasty little hole in my pocket. Listen small, vampiric Scottish woman off the telly with extraordinarily vein-y hands and an unhealthy relationship with poo, I know I should be DITCHING THE CARRRBS but spaghetti is cheap. Ok? As is bread. Ditto potatoes. Do you know what's not cheap though? Essence of Pekingese mango skin or dittany of soya linseed rye bread. Oil from the back of the Neolamprologus Brichardi Kipili fish or nuts rich in Vitamin something-or-other delicately transported by trained parakeets. All just what I should be consuming four portions of before breakfast to intensely detoxify me and turn me into one of those shiny-toothed, glossy haired people who get photographed laughing as they eat their salad. Apparently. Diets with those sort of food types are cooked up by bored, thin people intent on tormenting others and are only followed by Jennifer Aniston, Megan Fox or Superwoman - all of whom have the money (I imagine being Superwoman would pay relatively well) and the mental (in?)stability to do so. But I'm in advertising, which quite often means you are in fact a total sucker for advertising. *nods somberly* It's silly, but pretty pictures, nice typography and the assurance that spending oodles on organic, hand reared, lovingly smothered in kisses, sung-to morsels retrieved from the bottom of some unreachable sea bed will be the best thing for your body since sliced bread (hmm, in this context that's more than a little ironic) I totally fall for it.

Ridiculous ingredient: I was hand crafted.

Me: Noooo.

Ridiculous ingredient: For reals. I was also lightly whipped and now nestle on something tousled and expensive and one of a kind.

Me: How exciting. I must have you. It'll make me all Nigella like if someone happens to rifle through my kitchen bin and finds your lovely, hypnotic wrapper.

Ridiculous ingredient: Well quite.

Just days after I'm back in the aisles wringing my hands as I gaze guiltily at the instant noodles for R6 - bargain - stocking up on tins of baked beans, wading through endless bowls of spaghetti, trying to decide what I can fashion out of an assortment of pickles and prunes and glaring at the offensive foods I gobbled in those three blissful days of dollar, that now taunt me prettily with their shiny packets and expensive price tags. I also have to battle with the knowledge that we have an entire cupboard in my office dedicated to crisps, biscuits, sweets and chocolate. Lunches are beginning to consist of crisp sandwiches without the bread (two can play at that game, Pret) and Quality streets. Gillian McKeith would have a fit.

So it seems like, until carrots have fancy labels on them and my inner faddy dieter moves out, I'm going to continue lurching from food joy - tra la la I'm bathing in food awesomeness - to food fail. Baked beans on toast is delicious. Baked beans on toast for twenty-seven days makes me want to walk in to Woolworths with a semi automatic.



* Oh and yes, the picture at the top bears absolutely no direct relevance to this post other then the fact that I like tacos (though I haven't had one in a-g-e-s) and I feel that said taco's sad little face resembles mine on my poor days. Besides, I have a frequent tendency to be tenuous and I only have three followers, so sod it.