Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Easy Street

It occurred to me as I was carrying around one of The Friend’s husbands new packet of pants, that in general, blokes get the easy deal out of living.

Now I’m fairly certain that any male reading this will immediately start to bristle, huff and puff whilst coming up with a list of arguments in his head.  Indeed, if I were to wait an hour then I could have the benefit of The Brother’s point of view too.

Seeing as I don’t have any of those things (Even the pants; I presented them to him with a flourish once we came back from buying them!  He duly thanked me for them, even if it was with a slightly bemused grin on his face!) then I will proceed to list my own views here and now, with no interruptions!

 

War paint. 

We girlies understand the importance of not scaring people with our unmade faces when we walk outside our front doors.  Men however, can quite happily waltz off to work without even looking in the mirror!  One of The Friends and I spent a happy 15 minutes in a well-known retailer this afternoon…(I’d love it for someone to tell me why Boots is called Boots?  It sells virtually everything except boots!)…and I bought my favourite makeup and a mascara I most definitely didn’t need. 

Now, men don’t have this problem; I have never heard of any instances when men have over-spent on unnecessary make up items! (And all the sickeningly gorgeous women out there who don’t need or use makeup, I am of course ignoring you!)

 

Flat Shoes

Whatever shirt and trousers combo he decides to go with, he’ll always get to wear flat shoes.  Whatever outfit I decide upon, I have a decision to make.  Heels (which make me vie for attention with the Empire State Building) or flats.  Now, I do occasionally miss wearing heels, so much so that I sometimes think that it’s a darned fine idea popping them on for the eve.  Off I toddle to wherever I’m going, only to regret the searing pain in the balls of my feet that signify I should have ‘practiced’ wearing them round the house for a few nights beforehand.

I’ve even been known to be what I consider to be extremely smart and clever (although I did get some funny looks so maybe it just looked nutjobbish!) and wore flip-flops initially to walk the long, painful distance into town.  As soon as I was settled in the bar area I swapped them for glam heels.  Now, here’s the clever bit:  Not wanting to carry around a flappy pair of flip-flops in my impossibly tiny and slightly useless handbag, I had come prepared with a large squiffy bag with my name and address on it! 

Off I scampered to the nearest post box to post my shoes home whilst a cluster of The Friends looked on in puzzlement, not sure whether to congratulate me on a genius idea or declare I was a loopy weirdo who was past all available help!

This would all have ended very smugly for me if I hadn’t received a parcel in the post a few days later, and thinking it was something exciting made a big fuss of opening it in front of The Minions…..When my scruffy, dodgy sandals flip-flopped their way onto the table, I couldn’t really blame them for looking at me as though I had lost the plot!

Cooking Babies In Our Tummies

Now I’ve not yet been lucky enough to have any little chiefs of my own, but I’m fairly certain that the male portion of this endeavour is pretty simple and doesn’t involve pushing a watermelon through a curtain ring.  Enough said on that one!

Hormones

He doesn’t have to contend with ‘The Monthly Visitor’.  Oh, wait, yes he does, just on the receiving end, which is entirely and most definitely NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD!!! (he he!)

Follicle Faffing

This is I think, the only one where the lines blur slightly!  I don’t think all of them care about their hair, but some spend longer than others on their barnets.  The Brother, for instance has very similar hair to me (just once I wish he’d grow it so I could see how ridiculously mahoosive it would be!)

For all their gelling, styling and preening, the blokes of this world still don’t have to put up with the fun and games we girls do on a daily basis.  Firstly, no one told me that I’d need a couple of years training just to have impressive enough muscles to cope with washing my hair…I’m sure my arms get a better workout working shampoo through my unruly tresses than ever going to any gyms.

Then there’s drying it.  One of The Friends has had massive amounts of fun this week as she’s been staying in a different hotel each day with her job.  Not having enough room to pack a hairdryer and a laptop in her tiny case, she made the startling sacrifice of her super dooper all singing all dancing bells and whistles entirely snazzbuckets hairdryer from home!  I think it’s safe to say she’s regretted this decision, as the hotels have provided her with a succession of ever increasingly naff excuses for barnet-blowers, and her life has suffered immeasurably! 

Straightening, curling, cutting, washing, conditioning, partying, holidaying, straightening again, central heating, air conditioning, dyeing, back-combing and a tad bit more straightening….Our hair puts up with a lot, and we put up with our hair!

So now I’ve finished sounding like a shampoo advert, I’m off to prod The Brother in the side of the head with a wooden spoon and tell him he’s lucky.  I’ll probably get a kick in response, but again he’s assured me this is entirely affectionate and any pain I might experience is my own fault for trying to defend myself!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

 

The Free Drink Black Widow

I was obviously feeling weak in the brain department last night.

So very weak, because somehow (and I’m still not quite sure how, I’m normally much more vigilant!) I was persuaded to go to our town’s local nightclub for a ‘jolly old boogie’…..Oh Dear!

The Art of Clubbing is not something I’ve spent much time or money on in the past.  Whether you blame it on my spectacular inability when it comes to dancing or the fact that there’s not many clubs in the near vicinity, the outcome is still the same:  Clubbing scares the heebie jeebies outa me!

Not in a  ’can’t walk round the corner for fear of some evil thing leaping out and making me wet my knickers’  kind of scary, just the  ’balls, someone’s suggesting a club…I always make a tit of myself’ sort!

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I only do ironic ‘Look at me I can churn out a passable cha-cha slide’ dancing.  All this jumping up and down with your hands in the air just doesn’t work for me. (And of course, 37% of the rest of the punters in there at any given time:  It’s sometimes very reassuring that I’m not alone in the lumbering two left feet stakes: Hurrah!)

I did try very hard at first;  I’m rather good at imitating people, yet I ended up choosing entirely the wrong candidates to be my club dance mentor:  When you’re head banging so hard that you whip a poor unsuspecting bloke in the face with a ridiculously large mane of hair, it’s probably time to calm down and go buy yourself another drink!

Bars in clubs are even worse than regular ones.  First off, everyone’s usually uncomfortably Sweaty Betty, and instead of motivating everyone to increase their circle of personal space, it does the opposite and you end up trying to dodge air-borne particles (that was the most pleasant way to put that, sorry!) whilst trying not to look too nauseated!

I’ve even had a very excitable gentleman bound up to me and do the last thing anyone would want them to do in that situation…A giant, all-encompassing hug.  Bleurrgh!

From his sweat-glazed cheek I managed to acquire enough moisture to fill a couple of (Admittedly disgusting in this instance and why would you ever go near them, yeuch!) Roman Baths.

This was apparently something I was subconsciously anticipating earlier that evening when I was packing my handbag and dithered over including the paddling pool and 50 litre fish tank….How stupid did I feel when I realised the biggest receptacle for collecting and holding liquid I had on me was a measly pint glass?  Woefully inadequate in this instance, I was drenched in seconds!

I had to try to salvage what little makeup was left on my face after my impromptu ‘shower’, so I sauntered off to the loo trying to look nonchalant and dry.  No easy feat when you’re dripping half of the English Channel onto the grubby carpet!

Once inside the loo, I looked around at my salubrious surroundings and sighed.  I understand that the constant use of a club toilet means that it cannot possibly stay pretty, but this really took the biscuit.  Grotty cubicles with broken locks and piles of general clubbing detritus was not what I needed right at that moment in my life.  Was it too much to ask for a real towel and a sweet-smelling bottle of liquid soap?  Or even a potted plant in the corner that hadn’t died of a vodka and coke overdose?

Luckily, I was sufficiently distracted by a high-pitched screechy pair of teenagers barging their way into the restroom area.  (I’ve never understood the American word for toilet:  How many of us go and plop down on a sofa in a loo?  Or settle down for a snooze?  Even just sit down on a comfy chair for a break and a biscuit?  Never does this happen in a loo!  Restrooms?  Odd!)

Anyway, these girls:  Man alive were they loud!  This is the first thing I registered when they clopped in to the loo in their heels (known as ’Stripper Shoes’ in my household.  Ugly massive heels with huge wedges, normally incorporating too many straps and a buckle or two….)

This choice of heel screams ‘I’m up for it, look at me shoes!’ and makes me feel sorry for the girl wearing them, as though all they needed in life was a good role model who would help them choose the right GCSE choices and steer them away from chav footwear, drugs and full body tattoos!)

Ah, I veer off the pertinent subject yet again….

So they are chatting away in their chav accents (Nails down a blackboard!  Sorry, being very snobsters today aren’t I?  Oh well…  I’ll get over it!) and Girl 1 says to Girl 2:

‘Ere, did ya see that bloke out there with the shaved ed?  Ee bought me a vodka so I fought I better give ‘im a dance!’

Girl 2 then replies:

‘Yeah?  Well I got a whole bottle of Lambrini off the tall guy wiv the friend who looked like ee’d fallen outa the ugly tree…I gave ‘em my number…shame I got it wrong!’

They then proceeded to carry on listing all the free drinks they’d managed to coerce silly naive men into buying them; These blokes obviously thought they’d stood a chance!  Shame they picked a couple of clueless freeloaders who’s obvious aim was to rack up the highest amount of free alcohol without anyone cottoning on during the evening!

If a man buys me a drink it’s because he’s been chatting to me for a good long while and we find we have something in common (not very often, which is a shame!)  If only our generation could manage to adhere to the classic saying ‘Don’t judge a large girl by her cover’  (That’s right isn’t it?  I’m vaguely remembering something about books, but my version sounds better!) There might even be less single people in the world which can only improve the world’s economy:

A couple get together:  One less house to heat, furnish with water and gas, and one more homeless person off the street!  Why there are any single people left is a mystery to me!

It makes total, environmental and fiscal sense to shack up with the next available bloke you meet:  Get on with it girls!

Ah, unfortunately that is all happening in an alternate reality!  In our world right now, the single people are loudly tutting at the alcoholic teenage wastrels who are nothing better than chavvy sirens luring unsuspecting men to their sides with false promises of a dance and their phone number.  Why then, do the idiotic blokes fall for this trick every time?

Who knows!  All I have gleaned from the whole experience is that I do still need to take money out with me on a night out, as I can’t rely on random men throwing drinks at me;  and that I still rejoice at not wearing shoes that resemble a spider who’s been caught in between the pages of a very heavy book.

Blokes, watch out for The Free Drink Black Widow….She’s all bark, no bite!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Heads, Shoulders, Heels, Sore Toes

I love a good pair of heels.

There’s the first time you open up the lid of the shoebox and peel the tissue paper away.  I love the fact that the bottom of the heel itself is brand spanking new and looks like it’s never going to wear away.  I even love the fact that the shoes are placed opposite each other in the box so they look comfortable:  If you put them the other way they’d jostle and complain.

Even though I get excited about a cracking pair of shoes, I’m not a complete shoe-collecting nut, and I’ve slowed up on the buying front in the last couple of years.  This is mainly because I’ve realised one pretty vital point….

At 5 ft 8, I’m not what anyone would describe as short.  Quite the opposite really.  I’ve even had a lady working in a shop approach me and say to me ‘Excuse me, you’re on the tall side, can you reach a product for another customer?’  Stuff like that happens to me all the time.  If I worked in as many shops as people mistake me for staff in, I’d be a fiendishly rich person right now!

Sadly, as all I get is a thankyou at best for my giraffe-like grabbing abilities, I’ll not be giving up the day job any time soon!!

So me being the same hight as Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton (Good grief, that’s the first and last time I’ll be comparing myself to either of these two!  Couldn’t I have found anyone else?)  means that when I put on any of my gorgeous heels, I’m elevated off into Arnold Schwarneneggeggerer-type lofty heights.

I’m getting ready for a night out with all of my friends with the usual routine…shower, dry hair, attempt to tame hair into some semblance of sleekness, clothes, jewellery, empty contents of day handbag into going out handbag ( usually around 52% smaller) and wonder why it’s all not fitting, shoving harder until admitting defeat and sacrificing one of the three lip glosses just so I can close the annoying yet beeyootiful sparkly clasp…..

All this is happening pretty much on autopilot til it comes to choosing the shoes.  The shoes are invariably what enables me to achieve my customary lateness with such reassuring regularity.  (All the friends have been known to say things along lines of  ‘It’s ok, she’ll be another ten minutes yet, minimum’ with unfailing certainty!)

‘Why the shoes?’ I hear you cry!  ‘What have they ever done to you to make you regard them with equal amounts of love and mistrust?’  I’ll tell you why!  I love wearing them I really do, I even love how ah-maaazing I become at walking in them when I’ve had a few of my customary pink fizzes!  (This is what my brain tells me at the time anyway…Luckily I’ve never seen me on a night out because I’ve been too busy being, well, me!)

What I don’t love is standing at the bar directly behind whichever friend is getting the drinks and feeling like a couple of lamp posts welded together!

It feels as though I’ve even got the light shining on top as if to say:  ‘Look at me!  I can see all your dandruff and bald patches, and all you’re likely to see is the underside of my chin’  For an already self-conscious person in these situations, being head and shoulders above everybody else isn’t the look I was going for!  When I try to manoeuvre my whole party of over ten friends just so I can stand next to a tall bloke, that’s when I feel it’s time to invest in some ballet pumps and be done with it!

So my sparkly, shiny killer heels (Killer heels?  Just where did that phrase even come from?  Who thought it up and did they actually shout out to their husband one night ‘Dave!  Have you seen my red heels?  You know, the ones I bumped off the postman with last week?’)  are all confined to neat purpose bought shoe boxes. (Well I am a Virgo after all!)

They do see more daylight than the poor lacy knickers, yet they register their displeasure at their banishment by forgetting that they were once comfortable beauties and mashing my poor toes into submission with every outing!

Maybe I’ll start replacing all of the friends one by one til I’ve got a full set of 6foot-ers?  Or put them all on permanent-if unwieldy stilts?

Don’t worry chaps, this is unlikely to happen as the stilts seem like a bit of a pain to make and I’m not putting an ad in the personals for a dozen new beanpoles either.  I’ll stick with what I’ve got I think!

They’re shortarses, but they’re my shortarses!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head