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.