Why I could never move back home (Part 1)

Over the festive season I spent four whole days at my parent’s house which is the longest I’ve spent there since I moved out five years ago. I always go and stay at their house on Christmas Eve and spend Christmas day with them but I usually only make it till Boxing day before I have to escape back home to the land of peace and sanity.

However this year I knew that my fridge was empty and since I’d turned the heating off before I left it would be sub zero in the flat when I got back so I decided to stick it out until the Christmas leftovers had run out. And if that meant enjoying their toasty warm house for a few more days then so be it.

It was nice to be back home but it did remind me of why I could never live with my parents again. As much as I love my family they have a few habits that I will never miss:

Dad: the Food Critic.

Dad is an adequate cook. And by that I mean he is better at cooking than mum. He will use oils and other tasty goodness whilst cooking that mum won’t touch. Thanks to a lifetime of dieting mum will sacrifice taste and flavour in order to save any calories she possibly can. Also where mums philosophy is to cook things till they are done, and then cook it again for good measure, dad sees the importance of timings and understands that food doesn’t have to be a dry lump of charcoal before it is edible (dad puts it down to her being worried about food hygiene, I suspect its more to do with the fact mum just wanders off to watch telly whilst she is cooking and forgets about it). He is no Gordon Ramsey though, except for the swearing maybe.  

Unfortunately for us all, mum tends to do most of the cooking. If it was just a case of having to eat mum’s food it wouldn’t be that bad, even if her food is a bit dry and tasteless it’s still a hot meal that I haven’t had to cook.

What spoils mums meal is the fact that dad can’t just graciously chow down on what he has been given and thank mum for cooking the meal like the rest of us.

Instead dad has to go through the whole charade of picking at his food for a bit like a teenage girl on a date, then chewing with a pained expression on his face like he is eating broken glass.

Once he starts going through his little performance, mum always asks him ‘Is it OK? Do you like it?’ After 26 years of marriage I can only assume she has figured out what is coming next, but still every time she looks a little bit hurt and disappointed when he complains it’s too dry, or too cold, or too spicy, or too bland, or too tough (you get the idea). Dad then spends the rest of the meal telling us how he would have cooked it or how he had it in a restaurant once and it was really nice. Of course this rarely prompts him to start cooking meals (although to be fair to him he does on occasion).

As a result of dads armchair cooking I hate cooking for him. Cooking is one of the few things in life that I consider myself to be reasonably good at. I could never work as chef, but I can usually produce something quite tasty for tea and I like to experiment with different flavours and recipes. Just the though of making something for my dad to eat fills me with dread, which has a detrimental effect on my cooking ability, which then means he has something to pick at, which makes me more nervous about cooking for him again and so on so I’m locked in a big cycle of culinary terror.

Despite this however I still have a glimmer of hope that I can cook something for him that he will enjoy and I can achieve some hard earned words of praise. This is probably how I ended up volunteering to cook him a roast duck for Christmas dinner in spite of never having cooked it before. Under dads instruction I followed a simple recipe, to the fucking letter, and while the rest of the family were playing with their presents in the other room, I was waiting patiently next to the oven for an hour and a half, lovingly basting ever 20 minutes, checking the temperature of the oven and generally trying to avoid any major kitchen disasters.

When it finally came down to eating, I was feeling pretty proud. The duck had turned out good! It looked all golden brown and delicious, it was nice and succulent, not dry. It was fatty- but its duck so that’s how it’s supposed to be. I sat there eagerly waiting for him to eat it and tell me how awesome it was and what a good daughter I am. But then it started. I could tell from the first bite that something wasn’t right, he started doing his glass chewing face, and then came the prodding and poking, then another tentative bite, then more face pulling.

I couldn’t help it. I’d heard my mother ask the same question hundreds of times before. Before I knew it the words where slipping out of my mouth.

‘Is it OK? Do you like it?’

As soon as I’d said it I regretted it. I knew what was coming next; he didn’t even have to answer before the familiar feeling of failure and shame washed over me.

‘I don’t think I like duck after all, it tastes gamey and plain. Maybe it would have been nicer with some more seasoning’ etc, etc.

I was too crushed to even try and defend my cooking, or even point out that I had followed the recipe that he had approved. He didn’t think to thank me for the effort I had put into making it. He didn’t even attempt to finish the duck he had on his plate already. Merry Christmas to me.

For all my dads lovely qualities (he is a pretty awesome guy in most other ways) I don’t think I could suffer the humiliation that is cooking for him on a regular basis, nor would I want to give up cooking.  

This is the first reason I could never move back home.

I was going to cover all the reasons in one post, but once I started writing this post I found out I clearly have more issues with my dad than I thought and it’s got a bit long already so I’m going to break it up. Look out for the next installment, Mum: the nudist.

Relationship Contract

Dear Mr Taylor,

I am writing to inform you that your contract as Becky's boyfriend is coming up for renewal.

Since you have been a valued customer for many years you have the following options.

To renew your contract we require one of the following:

1. Making a romantic gesture, examples include treating Becky to lunch, buying her flowers or composing a song/poem.
2. Buying Becky a gift. The boots we saw in Jones yesterday would be an excellent choice.

If you would like to upgrade your contract to premium status you can do so by proposing.

If for any reason you are not satisfied with the service you have been provided and would like to cancel your contract please fill out the relevant forms and enjoy your miserable life alone.

If you would like to discuss any of your options further please contact me on the number below.

Have a nice day!

Rebecca
Your Loving Girlfriend


Dear Rebecca,

Thank you for your email.

Please confirm that our contract has now been renewed.

As per the renewal conditions, a gift would be required before the renewal can be completed. According to my records, every day you spend with me is a gift from Our Lord God in Heaven.

Please note that if this is not acceptable for a renewal, I will taking this to the market for review, with a view to finding a cheaper, but still reasonably attractive alternative. As I'm sure you know, these are tough economic times and we all have to tighten our belts (just not around our necks).

I appreciate all the servicing of me you've done over the years. I hope we can reach a mutually acceptable renewal agreement.

Kind regards,
Matthew Taylor
Man | With needs

Why I hate cheek kissing.

I’m not a big fan of kissing anyone that isn’t my boyfriend or my immediate family (and even then it’s sketchy). I know its very European and fashionable to greet people with a kiss on the cheek, but I just don’t understand the appeal of smoshing your face against everyone you meet.

In fact as far a greetings go, I’d be happier if all physical contact was just left out of the picture. The occasionally hug is fine from a friend you haven’t seen in a while or your mum (you have to hug your mum), but someone you don’t know very well, or worse, a stranger, should not be allowed to touch just because you have said hello.  

Thankfully most people are normal and don’t feel the need to rub up against me at any given opportunity but in a way that makes it worse because I  am caught unaware when it does happen.

I’m still being haunted by the memory of my boss trying to kiss me at the Christmas party a few weeks ago (on the cheek, this isn’t that kind of story). I’d forgotten the social face-smoshing obligations so when my boss leaned in towards my face I was caught off guard so instead of kissing her on the cheek I recoiled in horror.

She had to ask me to kiss her before I fell over backwards. Instead being socially acceptable and making a good impression on my boss, I’d stared at her, disgusted, like she was waving excrement in my face.

Even worse is the double kiss. I’ll be so proud of myself for being a proper human and responding appropriately that I’ll fail to notice that the other person has swung round for another go and not move my head. This can lead to some awkward situations.

It’s always really heavily perfumed women that want to kiss you. They drag you closer and press themselves against you, like they think the purpose of perfume is to gas other people with it.

Alternatively you’ll bump into someone you haven’t seen in ages and due to a series of unfortunate events you’ll be at your most smelly and disgusting. As they lean in you know they can smell you and they definitely are thinking that you a vile and repulsive tramp.

You might think that I would prefer air kissing. It avoids all the smell and touching issues I have. Unfortunately though it makes you look like a twat. 

Postal Rage

Last week I posted about shoes, and my very emotionally scarring experiences buying them.

 I truly thought that I had found a relatively pain free option in eBay (although I did get a pair of shoes I’d been winning all week cruelly snatched away from me in the last 30 seconds even though I was watching the page at the time- but that was my fault.) 

I’d won and paid for my new ridiculous shoes and was waiting for them to arrive in the post. Since I’ve inherited my father’s sense of paranoia and distrust of strangers, especially strangers who have taken your money, I was worried that the guy might scam me and I would have no shoes. But he sent me an email confirming dispatch and a tracking number so I knew they had been sent.

Then I was worried that maybe they would get held up somewhere because of all the ice and snow, but even then it would just a few days late and so that wouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

What I didn’t worry about was that my postman would be to be too bloody lazy to write out a  ‘Sorry we missed you!’ card and leaving the my precious shoes on my doorstop, in my crappy neighbourhood, for someone to steal. Which (if you hadn’t already guessed) is exactly what happened. 

Fortunately the thieves kindly took my shoes out of the packaging and left in on the doorstep so instead of thinking they had been lost in the post, I knew I had been robbed.

The weird thing is I’m not that angry at the people who took my shoes. Yeah, it was pretty shitty to steal my shoes and I’m not saying I like them, but if I had left the shoes outside my house myself, I would not have been surprised if someone had taken them. We live close to a busy road, right near loads of pubs and clubs so there is always nob heads walking past our house, plus we are in a bit of a red light district (a brothel on our road got shut down earlier in the year). It’s not so rough that I worry about getting beat up but you wouldn’t leave your stuff outside. 

Which is why all of my anger has been focused entirely at the post office. This anger grew when I had to select about 20 different options on their stupid, automated menu and speak all my details in before being put on hold, then still being called the wrong name when someone finally answered.

I had planned to really lay into the customer service guy when I got through, but my burning rage was temporally subsided as the evil post office had hired some charming Australian guy, who was so apologetic and made me remember that I work in customer service and I hate it when people shout at me for things that aren’t my fault. So I managed to mumble ‘I’m very angry’ before giggling like a fool and going ‘Oh thank you Josh!’ when he assured me that the postie would get told off and directing me to the online forms I needed to fill in. 

However the fury quickly returned when I found out that the form wasn’t a nice, user friendly online form, but a PDF that I needed to print out, complete by hand and post back.

It wasn’t even a nice PDF form.

If I was in a calm state of mind I might have thought that the declaration that you’re not committing fraud was a reasonable request but by this stage I read it as ‘YOU ARE TRYING TO STEAL FROM US BY COMPLETING THIS FORM.’ 

The form also called for me to provide printouts of the paypal transaction and the item on eBay. Again calm, rational me would have understood that obviously this is required, this form wasn’t just for me, this form was for other people too. People who might try and defraud them and the post office didn’t know that I am honest person who wasn’t trying to steal from them. 

But rational me wasn’t in charge. By now I had become a tower of simmering rage and I couldn’t believe that audacity of the post of it to accuse me of stealing from them when it was them; who’s careless, disregard of my property was the whole reason I was having to complete their stupid, wanking form in the first place.

I was so angry again I decided to write a letter! (I’m tough) 

Regrettably, the terrifying prospect of having to confront someone, even in letter format, overrode most of my anger so I still didn’t dare write what I was actually thinking, but just so you can understand my inner turmoil I’ve included what I was actually feeling (and what I would have wrote if I had bigger balls) in red

Dear Sir or Madam,

Please find enclosed a claim form for the contents of my package which was delivered to my house on 13^th December 2010. The package was left on my doorstep without my consent (because what kind of moron consents to their stuff being left in the street all day, especially when I live less than a mile from the depot) and then the package was opened and the contents stolen (unsurprisingly)

As the recipient of the package I am unable to provide details regarding the posting. (How dare you ask for this information I can’t obtain without speaking to a stranger) However I do have an order tracking number which I trust will provide you with sufficient information and proof that the package was posted. (It’s on your bastard system so you better not kick up a fuss) 

I have also included a print out of the eBay item sale page and PayPal pages which should provide you with an adequate description of the item and details of the cost (I can’t believe you have asked for this, you are wasting my ink on top of getting my shoes stolen). Please note that the shoes cost £12.50 and postage and packaging cost £4.50 which I paid to the seller. As such I expect the full £17 to be refunded to me. (Don’t think you are going to cheat me out of money if the postage cost less than £4.50)

I am furious that this has happened and the whole situation has inconvenienced me greatly (I’ve had to spend my precious evening filling out your pissing forms instead of watching TV and drinking beer). I am also annoyed that I was unable to complete an online form. Having to print and post this form (not to mention calling up your ridiculous customer service line which has far too many automated menus) (I really did put that bit in BURNED post office, point to me!) has wasted my time and inconvenienced me further when an online form would have been quicker and easier to complete and easier to process on your end as well. (I think I pretty much put what I thought here, I was feeling a little bit cocky by this point)

In addition to receiving compensation for my stolen package I would also like to receive a letter of apology from the postal worker involved. (Since he couldn’t be bothered to fill out a card he can write me a whole letter instead) 

I expect to hear from you shortly.  (If you don’t call me back I’m going to pester you constantly)

As you can see from the end of my letter, anger makes me a tad petty (I have a younger sibling which I blame for this) so I thought I would insult the post office further by emailing them copies of my forms.

 I thought this would really stick it to them and make them feel like they were old and redundant, but the post office have clearly thought of this already and I couldn’t find an email address on their website so I’ll have to post the forms tomorrow (by which time I’ll probably take out the past about the apology letter and the online forms- even though I do think it’s something they should do). 

Most of all I feel disappointed with the post office. It’s not the first time its let me down, but it’s never let someone steal my stuff before. I’m sure I will get over my rage (I’m pretty much there already if I’m honest now that I don’t have any more forms to fill out) but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully trust it again. And once the trust has gone, well… it’s never the same. 

Plus it has definitely not helped with my shoe buying issues. 

UPDATE: The post office may be a big pile of wank but the people from eBay are not! I told them the shoes had been stolen and they very kindly sent me another pair despite it not being their fault at all!
You can visit their eBay shop here if you want to buy your shoes from awesome kind people!

Annoying Matthew

I think at my core, I’m quite an annoying person. At work I suppress it as much as I can, sometimes it slips out and I’ll start gabbling away at someone who is clearly busy or spread my stuff out over other peoples desks, but generally it’s kept contained and my colleagues can tolerate me… but I can’t be expected to be normal all the time. 

Behind closed doors, away from the rest of the world, my true self can come out to play and the one person that gets to experience the “best” of me is my poor, long suffering boyfriend.

Over the years with lived together I’ve done the following things to annoy him (some on a regular basis:

• Pretending to hit him
• Accidentally hitting him whilst pretending to hit him
• Actually hitting him in a ‘surprise attack’
• Pretending he hits me by cowering away from him in public places
• Pretending to be mentally disabled whilst we are out in public holding hands and he isn’t looking (I’m not proud of that one)
• Hiding from him with the intention of scaring him
• Coming from early from work just to hide from him, then falling asleep hidden and waking up two hours later and scaring the hell out of him.
• Hiding his things
• Broke his expensive keyboard by spilling water on it and not cleaning it up properly (this wasn’t on purpose, it was a combination of my clumsiness and laziness but it did really annoy him!)
• Peeling the fake wood coating off his desk
• Carving things on his desk where I have peeled the fake wood off (it’s a super shit desk though)
• Making scratching noises when we are going to sleep so he thinks there are mice in the bedroom.
• Taking the supports out from under our bed, propping it up with cardboard boxes and watching as he flops into bed and falls straight through. Then laughing manically at him for the rest of the night.
• Taking up the entire bed and insisting on having at least two of my limbs on him before I will sleep.
• Telling him that he has to wake me up in the morning and then kicking and screaming at him (literally) when he tries to.
• Pushing him off the bed but catching him before he hits the floor to see his ‘scared face’ (Written down that does make me seem like a bit of a psychopath)
• Accidentally dropping him whilst doing the above
• Turning music/TV up when he has asked me to turn it down (and vice versa)
• Getting in the way of the TV/screen when he is busy (I’m like a cat)
• Crawling along the floor on my belly so he doesn’t see me then making his computer chair go down (this is hardly ever worth the effort but it’s a classic)
• Unplugging the internet (this is only when I’m really angry with him)
• Getting him to teach me Photoshop just so I can make pictures of him as a monkey.
• Bidding on an (fake) engagement ring on his eBay account
• Telling him that a stock cube is a toffee and that the black bits in it are vanilla and letting him eat it.
• Chopping onions and then rubbing my hands on his eyes (this really wasn’t as cruel as it sounds and it was largely accidental)
• Telling him he has a big nose, then pressing it with my hand and shouting ‘HOOOOOONK!’
• Petting him like a dog
• Making a whole host of irritating noises (in his ear if possible)
• Going mental at him, apologizing for going mental then going mental again when he is still sore about it and doesn’t accept my apology immediately.
• Calling him a girl or implying he does things like a girl.
• Ordering him to do things constantly and then getting really self-righteous if he asks me to do something (“You’re not the boss of me!”)

There’s all the usual stuff as well like not turning lights off, not doing the washing up, promising to cook if he tidies up and then just ordering a takeaway, many things I’ve probably forgotten (and some that are too inane to share) and I’m sure even more that I’m not even aware of.

I thought I would feel really guilty about all the horrible things I have done (and occasionally I still do) to him laid out in one big list, but actually I feel almost a little bit proud. I do feel a little bit bad about some of the things I do. Mostly I’m annoying because I find it quite funny and if Matt can take it and still love me then it ok, right?

I’d even go as far as to say that he loves me because of it.

Although he insists that is in spite of it. 

Does eBay think I'm a tranny?

Because I don't get many emails from real people, I do occasionally read my junk mail just so I feel like its worth while having an email address.

I've recently signed up for a new eBay account, since although I know I have an old one I've forgotten any information which I would need to access it again. Ideally there would be a forgotten your User name, password, email address, postal address and possibly your own name form to fill in but sadly not.

As this is a brand new account, I have no purchase history at all. And the only things I've bid on are some shoes and 2 coats (which is why I signed up again.) So when I spotted an email from eBay saying 'Are these to your tastes?' I was intrigued to see what I had revealed about myself to eBay in my two days of use.

Under the heading "based on what you have bid on, you may like these" there was a picture of 1 pair of shoes and 5 pictures of wigs.

At first I just though "Oh silly eBay, you've got nothing so you give me wigs!" But then I remembered that eBay is a pretty big website that makes a lot of money and can afford some complicated marking technology that probably doesn't involve sending people random pictures of wigs.

I thought back to the items I had bid on, shoes and coats. Not fancy dress shoes and coats, just normal ones. So why wigs? There just didn't seem to be a connection.

I was confused so I asked my boyfriend what he though:
 
Me: All I've bid on are some shoes and coats and eBay is offering me wigs?
Boyfriend: Maybe it thinks you are a tranny?

First I just laugh at him, and then I remember my massive feet. The whole reason I was buying shoes on eBay is because I need size 9 shoes and most women's shoes only go up to an 8.
Going shoe shopping in 'real life' shops is a horrific experience for me. You have to go in, look at all the pretty shoes, select your favorite, find an assistant, ask if they have it in your size, be told no, mournfully return the shoe, select your second favorite, find the assistant again, ask again if this is in your size, be told no again, put the shoe back again and then keep repeating the process until there is only the ugly, granny shoes left and your soul worn down to nothing from the constant failure and confirmation that your feet are too freakishly large for nice shoes that you burst out crying in a wave of self pity and frustration. On occasion an assistant has taken pity on me and just taken me into the store cupboard to look at all the size 9 shoes in one go, but even then once you're in there it's still just all the ugly, granny shoes only now you are in a small cupboard with a sales assistant looking expectantly on and now I have to buy a pair of ugly, granny shoes and go home cry about the money I've wasted on them (and the fact that I have mutant feet means I don't deserve pretty things).

Even in shops that display the shoes in size order are just as traumatic. Again the big shoe section is usually at the back of the store (hidden away from the light), so you have to walk past all the smaller shoes first, large sections of multi coloured shoes and boots, with high heels and ribbons and bows and glitter and fancy designs on them. You start to get excited- maybe things will be different this time, maybe there will be beautiful shoes for me too?

Then you reach them. No spacey, high up shelves for these shoes. Its always the bottom shelf, in the corner where all the dust collects. Most of them are navy, flat, no ribbons, no bows, no glitter, no fancy patterns. But there is still a glimmer of hope, dotted amongst the plain, boring shoes, you see nicer shoes, shoes that would probably hurt your feet but would look amazing on!

But its still just a cruel trick, because just like the other shoe store, they are not shoes for you! They are just other shoes that people have tried on and not bothered to put back on the right shelf. The prettiest shoes available to me are shoes which women with normal feet have rejected. And they are not even really available to me, they are just there, taunting me.

This also usually results in me crying but at least there is not a sales person who knows involved in my humiliation. Any one who sees me crying will probably assume it is because I've just received some horrible news and not that I am crying over shoes. I hope, maybe in future I will get my phone out as a cover.

As you can see, shoe shopping is the same pleasure for me as sex in the city would have you believe. So eBay seemed like a good option. I could look at shoes just in my size so I won't get jealous of all the other shoes and if I cry, nobody will  know because I'm at home on my laptop!



As you can see big my feet are a bit of a sensitive issue for me, and now eBay thinks I'm a man because of them and since I'm pretty sure I specified my gender when I signed up; not just any man, a big, lying, transvestite man. Great.

 OK since I started writing this post, I have won these shoes:

Maybe I can see eBay's point.

On the plus side, they are more then one colour, they have a heel and a FRICKEN BOW!