Being Middle Class: Acting like a fishwife

Today is a day NOT to mess with me....

If I were terribly, terribly, middle class and frightfully, frightfully proper I wouldn’t have done wot I did in the Tesco Car Park at lunchtime.

I think my father would have described me as acting like a fishwife. At least that would be the polite version.

Mea Culpa

I hold up my hands.

Guilty as charged

BUT

But  I did have an excuse.

Honest.

Come on have you ever had to work from home AND get your kids to do holiday work?

It’s a recipe for disaster and there is a lot to be said for just giving up and giving in and letting them kick back in front of the TV all day eating crisps. It would be so much easier if I did and I’d get a heck of a lot more work done.

But I know better of course.

I get my kids to do their holiday work come hell or high water and it’s usually both.

They whine, I rumble.

They whine some more and muck about, I growl loudly

They stubbornly refuse to get on with it and I start to shout

They shout back and I explode and there are lots of tears.

After about two hours they settle down for five minutes to get on with it and are then distracted and start to whine all over again about how unfair it is that they have to do holiday work when surely none of their friends have to do any…at this point I go into melt down and basically everything all goes horribly wrong.

I storm out of the house leaving a rather shell shocked family behind. I jump in the car and slew my way down the gravel drive before hurtling into town and Tesco where I intend to pick up sandwiches for lunch and grab some cash – any excuse to get me out of the house so I won't actually carry out my threat of murdering my two boys.

So there I am wondering around the Tesco car park and I see a space; I drive into it then notice there is a space in front that I can drive into allowing me a quick forward getaway when I have finished my chore. But there are two, I’ll call them ladies, gossipping in the space. I nudge my car forward to get them to move so I can park.They stop talking and glare at me momentarily before carrying on.

I wait for them to move.

They don’t.

I rev the engine a little more in case they don't realise that I wish to park where they are standing. I expect them to raise their hands in apology and move away.

They don't instead older woman barks out: “What’s your problem.” Before turning her back on me to carry on talking to her friend.

Normally I would have got all embarrassed and apologised for trying to park and all that but today I have had enough.

Today I am NOT going to be polite.

Today no one had better get in my way.

I flip.

Today I am a real witch.

I rev the car more and hit the horn LONG and LOUD as I drive forward.

"What do you think you are playing at!!" she hollers at me.

"I am parking my car..."

"You could park anywhere!"

"But I don’t want to park anywhere," I say sweetly through gritted teeth."I wish to park here..."

"Well am talking to my friend and I can talk to my friend wherever I like!"

"Great next time try doing it in the middle of the motorway. In the meantime I am parking my car right where your standing - so shift…"

I am not sure if I would have driven right over them but I am glad that they thought I might have driven straight over them.

They even backed right off when I got out of the car still hurtling insults as they walked away.

I should have left it like that.

But as I said: NOT today.

I stalk after them with murder plainly written across my face.

"You want to take this further? Do you? Come on then…"

I honestly believe that I would have got into a full on scrap there and then in the middle of the Tesco car park – talk about anger transference!

They scarpered and I felt…

Brilliant!

It was a total relief.

No shaking, no guilt, no shame.

Went into Tesco and was utterly charming to everyone.

Frightfully Middle Class….

Writing under the influence…

Have you ever done it? I mean tried writing when you were drunk? I am doing it now and perhaps that is not a good thing but I suppose it depends on what kind of drunk you are. Of course I am not saying that I am drunk; merely sort of unhinged, no not unhinged that would be me about to go to the nut house when actually I am already there. What I meant was liberated but that’s pretty close to unhinged isn’t it?

There are a lot of squiggly red lines when you are liberated and the question is should one care? Or is that part of the process?

I am merrily drunk, happily pissed, unilaterally uninhibited. If it were warmer I swear I would divest myself of clothing and go frighten the chickens by swanning about nymph like in my wood but I don’t think it would be appreciated. By neither my neighbours nor my husband.

However there’s the devil in me wishing I was really as uninhibited…

I find it fascinating how after all these years my writing reflects how much I feel and how I can tell by those first few lines exactly what I was thinking and feeling at the time even though mostly what I write is fairly prosaic. I am sure we all notice it when we give ourselves the time. It’s a bit like looking at a photograph; you are slightly divorced from the moment and then you are there. It’s all in your mind’s eye and the scents, feelings and sensibility of the occasion all come rushing in as you fight your way back to the time when…

I am a writer but until right now I never admitted it. It’s kind of a bitter secret for by admission I feel I am announcing that I am merely an observer of life rather than one of its participants but it has always been thus. I have never quite fitted in either in my family or with my friends. Maybe I am kinda autistic but perhaps that is wishful thinking. There should be no excuses.

Carpe deum should be my motto but I fear it is more mea culpa and sometimes even cave canem.

Maybe that’s how I should describe my life –apologising for seizing the day then blaming it on the dog…

Well they do say In Vino Veritas….