When the kids are re-united …

Yesterday I received an email inviting me to a school reunion. Ten years since I left school. Oh my. The sender I instantly recognizes as the irritating, overly sociable little git who constructed his own lie-down bicycle at the tender age of 15. In the ‘TO’ box, I soon spotted various irritants of my formative years. Funnily enough, the entire ‘in crowd’ is on there. And yes, I am still puzzled why it was sent to me, for I was never a member of this ‘in crowd’, Quite the contrary, I was with the weirdoes. The ones who did not live in Replay! And Chiemsee jumpers. The ones whose jeans were not made by Chevignon. If you have never heard of these brands, I suggest you pat yourself on the back right now.

Whoever invented the idea that school years are the best years of your life is a big liar. They are not. They’re the years you spend getting picked on, laughed at and smoking in the girls loos. The years with the ‘us versus them’ attitude, where you get the weird kids in one corner and the brand wearing offspring of the local surgeons and lawyers in the other. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bullied as such. And I did have friends. I just didn’t get on with the majority of these, well, people and I certainly did not enjoy school. Who’d enjoy a powercrazed megalomaniac at the front of the room telling those at the back of the room exactly what they should and should not be doing? Exactly. And lessons were not ‘fun’. And those ‘hilarious’ pranks the class jokers played on people weren’t all that funny. And I doubt they’ll be funny ten years down the line either.

‘Remember how we used to … whatever … in the chemistry lessons? Wasn’t it such a laugh?’. No, it bloody well was not. Chemistry lessons sucked ass. And so did PE. We were only there because we did not have a choice. I, for one, ditched chemistry as soon as I got the chance to.

The email is accompanied by an itinerary and a questionnaire. The itinerary consists of a champagne reception in the school hall (and I am, in fact, surprised the decrepid building that was my school hasn’t collapsed entirely yet), then a tour of the school (why would I need a tour? I spent nearly ten years in that school!), followed by a ‘bavarian buffet’ (think Emmental, think Pretzels, think large sausage platters, think no more) in the café of the nearby park. For this I am asked to pay 35 Euros. I don’t think so. I have an excuse. I’m out of the country. Permanently.

The questionnaire is disconcerting, to say the least. The email tells me that those wanting to save themselves from 120 small talks should fill in and return the questionnaire. Hang on, if there won’t be any small talk, why would you go to a school reunion. Without a half-arsed ‘so, what have you been up to?’ ice breaker, this is going to be a very silent affair indeed.

‘What have you been doing over the last ten years?’

Left the country.

‘This is what I remember from the last day at school celebrations?’

The only thing I remember is that, during the headmaster’s speech, I plucked up the courage to talk to this guy in my year I had a crush on for ages. He was a bit strange and I had never spoken to him before, He told me he secretly liked Abba. I haven’t seen him since and I doubt very much he would turn up for the school reunion. He never spoke to anyone at school, collected war memorabilia and most people were a bit scared of him.

‘This is what I always wanted to say about my final week at school’

1.Yes, I was stoned out of my brain when I turned up for that last biology exam. 2. Yes I did indeed burn the book in which absences were recorded. 3. Yes, I did nick about 50 air fresheners from the toilets during my last two years at school.

‘This is what still links me to Regensburg’

Not a lot. My parents live outside of town. My sister is transient between Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and Munich and my friends got the hell out of that town.

‘This is what I imagine myself to be like for the 20 year reunion’

Jesus, they’re planning another one? I have no idea, to be honest. Still alive, I hope.

Please take your items

Picture the scene. You’re in the supermarket. You’re hungry. You’re in a rush.

After repeating your order at the cigarette counter three times (what is it with non-smokers working at these counters?), you’ve filled your little basket and it’s payback time.

Queues, glorious queues as far as the eye can see.

You try to be smart and head for the self-checkout. To check yourself out. Up goes the little basket. Have you swiped your Nectar Card? As you fumble in your purse for the godforsaken card (that never seems to get you anything but vouchers for nappies you don’t need), your bloodpressure begins to rise. Card Accepted! Fabulous! You swipe a yoghurt and put it in your bag. Please place item in bagging area! I just bagged it! No really, I have. I don’t get it. On the one hand they are begging you to bring your own bags, on the other hand the robotic checkout girl throws a wobbly if you try to use anything but their bags. Please wait for assistance! Here comes with personal Checkout Captain in the shape of a spotty youth with a nametag saying ‘KevinHowCanIHelpAreYou21?’. Well, I am. Young Kevin certainly is not.

Onwards! I scan the next item. A packet of Heat Patches. The box states these do not contain any kind of actual painkiller. Still, Authorisation Required! Please wait for assistance! Now where has young Kevin gone? I decide it’s probably best to get the Ibuprofen ready also, since this is likely to cause another approval scene. Just in case I am planning to cut my shopping life span short with the help of 16 painkillers and a Heat Patch.

By this point my blood pressure has reached dangerously high levels and I am ready to throttle the screaming baby in aisle number three. Heck, I’ll throttle the teenager mother, too. That way she won’t be able to bring any more screeching, hairless little numpties into this world.

Shit. Now my bag is full. I fumble with plastic bags. A queue has formed behind me. Unexpected item in the bagging area! Yes, that would be my hand. Authorisation required! For my own flesh and blood. What is this? Some bizarre consumer assault course? I could be home by now, had I queued up behind the baby in aisle three.

At last! Insert payment! Only that the robotic check out girl does not like my 20p. The coin returns time and time again. I try the thing where you rub the coin on some metal (who came up with this idea? People do it in phone boxes, too. It never helps.). To no avail. Change of plan, I’m giving them a tenner. The tenner doesn’t want to go in either. Did I put the Queen’s head the wrong way round? Eventually, the machine eats my tenner and proceeds to spew out my change in a randomly located tray. Coins on the floor. I am beginning to sweat profusely, the queue behind me is getting restless. And so am I.

I hurriedly stuff my wares into bags and scuttle outside. Turns out one of the bags had a hole in it. There’s egg on my face, there’s egg on the floor. I am now very angry and kick the nearest dustbin in projected frustration. This swift motion causes me to drop bag number two. A milk bottle now decides to leak. I feel a one-woman rage coming on. Breathe in. Breathe out. For God’s sake, BREATHE. Walk away calmly. And stop pulling those horrible faces.

A Woman's Weekly

I think I am addicted to weeklies. It all started quite innocently with fishing out a copy of Love It! Magazine to read in the bath. Next was Take A Break, followed by Real People and there isn’t an end in sight.

Now, I consider my self a reasonably educated semi-feminist. I have no understanding of cosmetic surgery or the latest weight loss fad. Neither am I a 15 year old single mother with hoop earrings and hair scraped back so tightly my eyes have started to wander towards my temples.

But, how could I resist the riveting weekly story about someone having a sex-change? ‘My Groom is a Bride’! ‘How I became the first pregnant man in Bolton’!.

For the more harrowing tales, paragraph one will set the scene and force the reader to like the tortured protagonist. Hence, a lot of ‘I smiled’, ‘I cupped my baby bump’ and ‘I giggled as I stuck the last bauble on our Christmas tree’.

Inadvertently, some form of disaster will strike in paragraph number four. ‘Dwayne only had four weeks left’, ‘I was about to loose my baby’ or ‘I just didn’t feel comfortable as a man any more’. Luckily, good friends are always at hand to ‘soothe’. I could write a whole book on the overuse of the word ‘soothe’ in human interest stories. ‘It will be okay’, Stacey soothed, ‘Don’t worry, he only lost both legs, an eye and a kidney’, Jayneesha soothed …

After much soothing and despair, a solution will present itself in the shape of a ‘hunky mechanic’ with ‘rippling muscles and eyes like saucers’, accompanied by a picture of a grinning, hideous male with two litres of hairgel on his head, a gold earring in his nose, fake tan on his shoe and a shifty glint in his ears. Chavboy to the rescue! First thing chavboy will do is impregnate the protagonist, because then she will be able to do all the smiling and bump-cupping from paragraph once again and everyone is happy.

Should there was a baddie in the story, a picture of Baddie (no matter what Baddie did, if they’re male, they will always look like a pedophile) will appear at the end, with a caption saying ‘Bruce refused to comment, but did say he had never met Stacey in his life. Sadly, we could not interview him properly because he is currently imprisoned for petty theft or GBH’.

Another staple requisite for the likes of Love It! is the weekly plastic surgery story. Entitled ‘I hated my ugly hooter’ or ‘Bullied for my spaniel ear boobs’, this will explain to the hapless reader that a restructured bodypart can buy you eternal happiness. It also reminds you that anything smaller than a D cup will ruin your life (Oh no, better go hang myself on my A cup bra right now! I can’t possibly go on like this!). To reinforce the point, ‘before and after’ shots are provided. Before: blurred picture, bad hair, misery all around. After: big smile, full makeover (which tends to evolve around blond highlights and a low cut top or bikini), lens no longer blurry lens. Flat chested BAD. Big tits GOOD.

The cunning editor also manages to consiostently feature the amazing weightloss story right next to the one entitled ‘My Bulimia Hell’. What now? Am I meant to loose weight or gain weight?

Particularly annoying is the ‘You’ve Got Male’ section. Where do they find these people? Building sites? The job centre? They’re always topless and look like they’re likely to reappear in next week’s issue as an axemurderer. If I see another bronzed sixpack on some semi naked fireman I am going to puke.

Thumbs up for the Reader’s Tips page though (‘Carly’s Top Tips’!) though. Did you know there was ten useful things to do with the little net bags washing tablets come in? And that you can satisfy your neatfreak cravings by sticking clingfilm on the bathroom wall above the sink so you can just peel any toothpaste stains off the wall without actually having to scrub it? Did you know that your goldfish just loves frozen peas and that you can make a perfect gardening kneeling pad out of ‘an old showercurtain’? I don’t know about you, but how many old showercurtains do you have knocking around at any given time?

I can’t wait for next weeks issue. ‘I love my fake 32G boobs!’!! ‘I stole my best friend’s wrinkly dad!’!! and the much awaited ‘Cheryl Exclusive’!!

Hooked

I have come to the gruesome realization I am addicted to doing things I should not. Nothing major, but things like smoking in my flat when the contract clearly states I am not allowed to. Picking my nose on the tube a little bit when nobody is looking. That sort of thing. Now I’m planning to give up smoking but have every intention of getting a little furry pet, despite the fact my contract states ‘no pets’! And since I am considering of getting rats (would love a cat but I don’t want to be keeping a cat indoors and if I let it out, people in my block would know!) eg every landlord’s worst nightmare.

If the letting agency have to come round in an emergency, I’d be screwed. They won’t do that very often, but shit happens. Mind you, I am an experienced keeper of pets who won’t tell her parents about them. A friend once said ‘You never lie, apart from pet-related lies’. And he had a point there. I don’t lie to people and I do mean what I say, even when I’m saying stupid or inappropriate things, I am usually brutally honest.

So what is it with the excitement of doing stuff I’m not supposed to do. Why did I take the plug for the bath tub with me when I moved out? (ok, guess I wanted to annoy my old flatmate). Why did I badly paint the hallway of my old flat in the vain hope nobody would see the great big bike tyre marks?

Weirdly, despite the fact I am very strong willed, I do seem to have a very addictive personality. I obsess over stuff. I smoke. Thank God I never took up drugs and am a lightweight drinker. Instead I obsess over little things, like how coffee should be, what chocolate is good, strange bags and morning routines. And if anything or anyone disturbs my routine, my day shall be ruined from then on. At least until lunchtime. Probably not quite OCD, but somewhere on that scale.