Q is for…

QUESTION & ANSWER

Readers, we are going to have a little question and answer session, you and I. Well, we’re going to improvise a little. Rather than me actually sit round and wait for you to write questions in the comments section and then only get one anyway, which is like, ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ I’m just going to ask myself some questions that I think you might have asked me.

1. What was the most interesting thing you did yesterday?
Put some paper in the recycling bin out the front of the house.

2. That doesn’t sound very interesting. Why was it interesting?
Because I was dressed in my pyjamas, no shoes on, hair resembling a lion’s mane. And the front door closed and locked me outside.

3. I see. Hasn’t this happened to you before?
Yes. I had a pan on the hob at the time, pickling some chicory. There was no spare set of keys that time so I had to break into the house. This time, however, I knew it would be fine because two of my neighbours have copies of the keys. I specifically gave them to people I know don’t go out often.

4. And did you go and get the keys from one of them?
Well, I went next door first and knocked on her door. When there was no answer, I knocked again. The possibility that she was not there had not even entered my mind. After the second knock and a long wait, it became clear that she was not in. As I went back to my front door to make a plan B, a courier van pulled up outside and a man holding a parcel got out and approached the house. I stood there, helplessly, in my pyjamas and signed where he asked me to. Embarrassed, I explained that I was locked out and took the parcel he gave me, like a right divvy.

5. But Laura, of course you were wearing lovely pyjamas, weren’t you? Think Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s and I’ve got it, right? Cute, delicate, a bit sexy?
Readers, this is where I must disappoint you for this is far from the truth. Only a blind person would think that my pyjama-ed state yesterday morning resembled Audrey. For the truth of the matter is that I do not lounge around the house luxuriously, wearing eau de parfum and serenading playboys who live upstairs. I do not wear ‘silky numbers’ or sheer satin which clings to me in all the right places. The truth is that yesterday morning I was wearing a desperately unflattering pink number. I had long dark pink shorts, of a kind of cottony material which loses its shape after a few washes. They had a silly pattern of kiss marks all over them and were saggy around the knees. The t-shirt was probably the most atrocious thing about this outfit. It had once hung nicely and not made me look awkward and ill shapen and saggy-boobed. Once. But now it is old and faded and does all of the above. It also makes me look like I weigh about fifteen stone.

6. What did you do after you got the parcel?
I dumped it outside the door and faced the truth that I would have to go to my other neighbour’s house to get the key. Off I went down the road, shoeless, wild-haired, ugly pyjama-clad, in search of a key. I knocked at the door and my heart started to sink as the pause grew longer. I looked for his car, which is always there as he never goes out. And yep, sure enough, today was the day he had gone out.

7. So what did you do next?
There was only one thing for it. I needed to be able to call Danda and ask him to let me in. But I didn’t have my phone with me. I would have to walk to the end of the road, go in the deli (where I work, by the way) and use their phone to call Danda. Off I went again. And I’ll remind you again of my attire. Wild lion hair? Check. Saggy t-shirt which makes you look obese? Check. Stretched out pyjama pants with kiss marks all over them? Check. No shoes? Check. O, and I should probably add here, a little fuzzier than I’d have liked. My little stubbly legs stuck out the bottom of my pink shorts, pale from 7 months of winter and not yet defuzzed for the approaching summer. So there I am, like the trampiest hobo you ever seen in your life ever, walking down the road to the deli. I bit the bullet and just walked in, head down, and headed through the shop, inbetween the tables of coffee drinking mothers and espresso drinking suit-wearers having business meetings and went straight to the stockroom. The staff in there turned and, inevitably, fell about laughing, probably shocked at what a tramp I clearly am at home. I used the phone and called Danda, back to back, about five hundred times. Because, obviously, the one time in the day when he’d left his phone somewhere was the time when I needed him. He was in a shop and his phone was in his cab. He eventually picked up and said he’d be ten minutes. I waited in the back then heard a beep as he pulled up outside so I ran, with what dignity I had left (none) and jumped into the cab and was sped off home to pretend this all never happened. Danda, by the way, laughed uncontrollably when he saw me.

8. Good one. I had no idea you were such a nonce.
Well, readers, there you have it. I am, in fact, a big fat nonce. And when I got home from this pyjama-related trauma, I had a text from a friend saying ‘Good look.’ It turns out he’d been in the deli and witnessed my indescribable shame first hand. Brilliant.

9. Is there a silver lining to this story?
There is. I am going to Italy tomorrow and I think, with distance, I can start to heal. I’ve unofficially diagnosed myself with Post Traumatic Pyjama Disorder. I think that’s an illness, right?