What a little girl said to me recently (and a truffle story)

“Laura. I was in the playground and there was some writing on the slide. I think some bigger boys did it. Naughty boys. And there was a policeman so I told him and I said, ‘Come with me, Mr Policeman,’ and I showed him the slide and he said those boys were very naughty and he’s going to find them and tell them off.”

Hilarious! A 3-year-old crime fighter! Apparently, she took the Mr Policeman by the hand and showed him the graffiti and gave him a look that said ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ All the while, her mother hid behind the climbing frame and pretended she wasn’t with her.

And now, for a little cheat. I have been writing my NaNoWriMo religiously since November 1st, hitting exactly or slightly over the 1,667 wordcount every day, which means I’m now at 13,605 words. With all this writing, I thought to myself, “Surely there’s a way to double up here, hit two birds with one stone and all that?” So occasionally, during November, I may post something from my NaNoWriMo, if I’m feeling a little too lazy to write for both.

The following is a truffle story I wrote about the first time I ordered truffle butter for myself.

“I ordered my first two sticks of truffle butter online, one black, one white and they arrived a few days later. I immediately took them out of the box, peeled back the packet and smelled them. It was heavenly.

 

I was in work, where they had been delivered and an Italian customer came in. He and I would discuss food every time he came in as I love cooking Italian food and had recently been to Rome and he loved food and cooking too. In my excitement, I grabbed the stick of black truffle butter when I saw him and showed him. I handed it over, telling him to peel open the pack and smell it and he mistook it for me giving him the butter! He took it, smelled it, wrapped it back up and put it in his bag.

 

A hot flush ran over my entire body. He was quite shy and I didn’t know him very well, not enough to berate him jokingly and take it back off him. I needed the truffle butter that evening as I had a friend coming over for dinner and was planning to use it. I didn’t know how to get it back though. I stood in horror as I watched him say something I couldn’t hear, because the blood pumping in my ears was too loud. I realised he was thanking me for the butter.

 

“O god, o god, o god. Give me back my truffle butter!” I screamed at him, silently.

 

In blind panic, I said, “Let me just show you something on the butter, look,” gesturing toward his bag and, thankfully, he took it out, looking quizzically at the packaging. I, maybe too frantically, took the butter from him and scarpered back behind the till, grabbing one of the little takeaway pots we used for putting food in and cutting him off a small section of butter. I put the butter safely out of reach and offered him the cut off section attempting to look generous while he was probably wondering why I was being so odd. I then pretended something urgent was happening in the kitchen and ran off, clutching my truffle butter so hard, my knuckles had turned white.

 

That was the closest shave I’ve ever had, in terms of food.”

Danda and the birthday card

Yesterday was Danda’s friend’s birthday. I know this friend pretty well too so proposed dinner made by Yours Truly then set off into town to get a little card and a little something else from Danda and I.

I didn’t forward plan anything or scout around online to get ideas. I just figured something would catch my eye. I went into a card shop first and I looked.

I looked at all the pretty pinky red cards with owls and hummingbirds and cakes on them. I saw cards which looked like they had been stitched together. I saw cards with golden looped writing and sincere messages of birthday wishes and many happy returns. I saw fun cards with bubble writing and ages written on them. I saw cards with old photos and funny quotes on them.

And none of them were right. None of them quite suited a slightly older gentleman with an interest in World War II and programmes about true crime, who enjoys his own company and has a silly little dog that was kind of forced on him but who he’s actually quite fond of.

I saw billions of cards for women. Quite a lot for children. And a fair amount for people who think quotes on old black and white photos are funny. But not that many for men like my friend.

Eventually I tracked down two which I thought might fit the bill. One was a humorous card about the internet, prompted by my friend’s total impatience with anything computery.

The other was a green coloured one which looked like an old poster from the war and it had something about football on it, about how shouting loudly at your TV set helps them win. I didn’t know which to get and in my indecision, I got both.
I thankfully had a much easier time with the present and just got him a DVD set of stuff about the war.

I was still fretting about the cards and called Danda for his opinion. He said the football one would be best. I said I’d show him it before writing it.

When I saw Danda later, he was watching a programme called Minder, a classic from years ago, apparently.

“Danda,” I said. “Look at the card. It is just on the table there. I had such a hard time choosing it. I was in the shop for a long time and it is very important to me that you tell me if the card is ok.”

“Yep, I’ll look in a minute. I’m just watching Minder. It’s my favourite.”

“But Danda, we should write the card soon, before our friend arrives.”

“Yeh…. What you said….”

“Danda, something tells me you’re not really listening.”

“Mmmm.”

I got the card off the table and showed it to him. He looked at it briefly.

Silence.

“Do you think it’s ok, Danda?” I asked.

“Pardon?”

“Do you think the card’s ok? Is there anything about the card you’d like to say? I had such trouble finding a suitable one.”

Danda looks. He looks and he tilts his head slightly and he squints his eyes a little and finally he opens his mouth to give me his verdict.

“It’s a bit green.”

One of the strangest girls ever

I once went to Aylesbury, to a young offenders’ centre to train as a mentor for young men at the prison who were about to be released, to encourage them to not come back, essentially.

So I had a phone interview, then an interview in person then two days of training. Everyone else there had also had two interviews so I’m not sure how this girl made it to the next stage.

She was one of those people who is totally socially unaware. When the woman running the session asked us to take a few minutes to write something, like why we wanted to become a mentor, we would all fall silent. But this girl didn’t seem to realise what was going on. She was sitting, talking aloud and sighing and huffing and puffing.

“Why do I want to be a…. *loud sigh* …. hm… a mentor… hffffff… Why do I….. Erm…. *sigh*.”

It was bizarre! We were all silent, scribbling away and she was talking aloud to herself as though it was the most normal thing in the world.

When we were asked to each read one thing off our list it went as such…

“To help people.”
“To help reduce crime by repeat offenders.”
“Because I’d like to do criminal defense work so feel this would help me understand the issues involved.”
“Because I just retired and would like to do more voluntary work.”

And then it gets to her at the end of the line and she is asked for a reason. She looks at the list of things other people have said, which have been written up on a board and sighs, then picks one.

“To reduce crime by repeat offenders.”
“O, haven’t you got something off your own list that you wrote?”

She continues looking up at the board, not even glancing down at her own paper and goes, in a vacant type of way, “Yeh, it’s the same. All the same ones.”

Erm. It doesn’t make any sense. How can she have those same same things? The whole day went like that, talking aloud, sighing, saying odd things, copying whatever anyone else said.

When we left at the end of the day, I was offered a lift to the station by a woman who then offered the strange girl a lift too. It was hilarious. Five minutes in to the journey, she freaks and goes, “I’ve lost my passport! I’ve lost my passport.”

So we pull over and she talks v e r y slowly through what she might have done with it. And she figures out she has thrown it in the bin in the prison! Yes. That’s right. She has thrown it. In the bin. The BIN! How stupid is she?

I forget how she worked it out. But she ended up calling the prison to ask them to go and check in the bin. Of course, in a prison, you do not just run around different buildings looking in bins. Every door is opened and closed by keys. You never have two doors open at a time. You open one and close it behind you and it all takes a long time. We had been in the admin building, the staff of which had all gone home when we left. No-one was allowed in the building when the staff left. The security measures were tight.

She tried persuading the officers to go in the admin building. They obviously said no. She was going, “But my passport is in the bin!” like an idiot.

It was unbelievable.

I forget if she got it back. I just remember that I had to stare out the window really intently when we were in the car and try not to laugh out loud.

When we got to the train station, she got the same train as me! It was awful. She said, “I can’t believe I’ve left my passport in the bin,” about a billion and four times.

Now I’ve met strange people in life but I think she might have been the worst.

P.S. It’s Danda’s birthday today!

Just another day in the life of Detective Laura

I’ve just got a minor annoyance to share before I start today’s post. I would like to know when the government started dipping into my pay cheque to get student loan repayments? Surely they’ve got to wait till you’re not a student any more? It was only £3 from this month’s pay cheque so it’s not a big deal but I hadn’t realised they were doing it and I’m still technically a student.

Anyway, moving on. I’d like to talk about the time I single handedly fought crime and saved the world… kinda.

I worked in a coffee shop in a station for a few years, while studying my undergraduate degree. This one customer would come in a few times then we wouldn’t see her for months, then she’d come in again, out of the blue. She was Scottish and rude. Not many teeth. Short, orangey badly dyed hair. And she was very confrontational. Any words that came out of her mouth felt like an invitation for a fight. She refused to be served by anyone but the white people who were on shift so sometimes she’d stand for ages, refusing to give her order to the Burmese guy who was on the till that day.

One day, she came and asked for porridge and a chai latte. I made both and she sat down. A few minutes later, she came back to the till and declared that I’d made the porridge wrong. Her main argument seemed to centre around the fact that she was Scottish and, therefore, porridge making was inate in her being, so it was impossible that she could be wrong on this point.

She kept saying that to make porridge, you need pour the hot milk onto the oats, stir it, then let it sit for a few minutes, for the oats to absorb the milk. I, in turn, kept saying that that was EXACTLY what I had done. She got silly with her ‘explaining’ thing so I just said, “Ok, well what would you like me to do about the porridge you’ve got? Would you like a refund or should I make you a new one?”

It was like she couldn’t hear me. She kept ranting and raving about being an expert on porridge and got really rude about it.

“Ok, well I’m sorry about your porridge. There’s a customer behind you so could I just ask you to move along so we can serve her.”

She flipped.

She said she was going to beat me up. She was so angry.

“No, you’re not,” I said calmly. “I’m sorry about your porridge but this conversation is finished now. I need to serve the lady behind you.”

Still spouting threats to kick my head in, she came around the side of the kiosk and shook the side door. I knew she couldn’t get in, there was a code lock.

“I’m going to come in there and kick your head in,” she was saying, or words to that effect.

I sighed, picked up the milk jug and started steaming, for the next customer’s order.

“I’ll get in there!” she was still rabbiting on.

I just turned and looked at her.

“No. You won’t.”

“I will!”

“Well, come on then,” I said. She shook the door, menacingly. I was finding the whole thing highly amusing. Calm as anything, I gave her a withering look (or my best impression of one).

She circled the kiosk back around to the front again, trying to work out a way of beating me to a pulp. She was getting infuriated by my calmness. I could see this so was acting even more calm. She came around to the till again and said she was going to jump over the counter and kick my head in. I stepped aside to make a space to jump into and told her to go for it.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to. It was too high. Clearly wanting to kill me. She remembered the chai latte on the counter, picked it up and threw it inside the kiosk, aiming for me. It had cooled down loads so the bit that went on my arm wasn’t so hot. It went on all the equipment inside the kiosk though.

Realising that she might have done something arrest-able, she scuttled off and I reported it to the transport police, who took a statement.

A week later, I was walking along the high street after work and who should I see wrapped up in a sleeping bag with a paper cup held out, but the angry porridge lady!

I stopped a little further down the road and called the police, as I knew they hadn’t tracked her down yet. They told me to stay put and they’d come down and to inform them if she moved. I was like Inspector Morse or something. I lingered in a nearby phone shop peeping through the window display and trying discreetly to get photos on my phone as evidence in case she moved on. A few minutes later the police arrived. I burst out from my hiding spot and indicated it was her with a discreet, detective-like sideways nod of my head.

They arrested her. She said things like “I haven’t been in that coffee place for months!” And “I’ve never seen her in my life!” But she was carted off and given a fine under the Public Order Offence Act, or something and kept in the cells overnight.

Just another day in the life of Laura “Supremo Crime Fighter” Maisey. Watch out, here I come!

Disappointing

So far, this holiday has been quite disappointing.

Yes, dinner was lovely, but where was the burglary from the till at gun point?

Yes, the garden is huge and very impressive but where was the old war hero, hiding out in the disused chicken coop because he’d been rejected by society?

Yes, there’s a lamppost at the end of the garden path which is EXACTLY like the one in the forest in Narnia and I got really excited, but where’s the old wardrobe that transports you there?

And yes, the weather was quite nice and sunny, but where was the exciting thunderstorm that we could all be a bit scared of?

And ok, the drive here was great fun and we all sung very loudly to silly pop songs from our childhoods but that is beside the point! Where was high speed car chase and the lorry crash?

Yes! I am in book heaven and there are more books than I can count in this lovely house, but where are the strange voodoo dolls and torture equipment?

There have been no crimes, no mysteries to solve, no forays into another world and no inexplicable natural phenomena.

So unfortunately, thus far, it’s just been loads of fun and really nice.

Lots to get excited about!

Ok, I’ve been making a point to be more excited about things recently. I found some good stuff too. Joan Rivers’ birthday, Donald Duck’s TV debut, the Jubilee….

And today I have yet more to be excited about. This morning I went swimming. Again? I hear you all say, in admiration. Well yes, again. That’s three times in a swimming pool in the past few weeks. If I keep going at this rate, I’ll need to get some silly goggles and one of those tight caps in a loud colour, like yellow or red. O wait, there’s more. Not only did I go swimming, but I went in the outdoor pool today! How hardcore am I? Actually it’s lovely there because it’s got lovely trees all round it and the sky was blue and the sun was shining on my face and I could almost pretend I was on holiday. I also did a few more lengths than last time so am thinking of letting the Olympic Games committee know to count me in for next time around.

So after a fabulous start to the day I came home and baked some muffins…. Well at least it’s even stevens now. If I hadn’t been swimming then it would have just been the muffins and I think it’s generally frowned upon to just bake batches of muffins every day without at least pretending to do some exercise to have earned them.

They are banana bread muffins but I made them chocolate flavoured and put lots of cherries in them.

Another reason to be excited is because one of my other post-exam goals was to be more sociable and this weekend I have got that covered too. I am channeling my inner country bumpkin and spending the weekend in wellies with some uni friends.

Now the ‘lazy’ part of my username betrays itself a lot in my friendships. I am unfortunately quite a lazy friend. I’ve worked since I moved to London. Even around my full time undergraduate course, I was also working full time and volunteering part time. And when I was at uni, it was easy to see my friends because we were all in the same place. Then we all left, and my schedule didn’t get any less busy, and I didn’t make up for it by ensuring I kept in touch with everyone. So I’m very very guilty of having friendships that I don’t invest as much time in as I should. I will dedicate some time soon to seeing people more often.

That’s partly why this weekend will be so great. The main reason is of course that I’ll get to spend it hanging out in a tractor in wellies. That’s obviously the MAIN reason. But it will also be lovely to see friends again.

Double excitement then! Swimming and weekend away. Woop! I’m off to pack my going-away bag. Lots of waterproofs and warm jumpers! I love an adventure!

Omg, we could solve a mystery or something and then it really WOULD be adventure! I could live out one of my many childhood dreams, to be George from The Famous Five. Hopefully there’s a crime this evening when we arrive!