#21 I hate being a cripple

25th December 2012 - 8.37pm. Family holiday house, Middle-of-Nowhere, FRANCE. It happened as I was walking up and down the bottom step of our big staircase, trying to do some exercise to burn off calories from Christmas lunch. 

(Erm NO I was NOT going to go jogging because a) it was so cold outside I risked freezing my nose off and end up looking like Michael Jackson, b) I couldn't be bothered, c) it was pitch black which, in the middle of nowhere, means you end up running into Dementors or Big Foot or werewolves or all of the above - have you seen Harry Potter??? Honestly, Dementors are TERRIFYING! Although I guess that if you replaced their heads with Pikachu's face and pretended they were a new Pokemon, they'd be relatively cute.

 

*blink*

That's even worse.)

ANYWAY! So that is how, as I was stepping BACKWARD down the POLISHED WOODEN STAIRCASE in my SOCKS as any sane person would, I twisted my ankle with a big loud 'CRACK', fell to the ground, and then thought I should probably start screaming my head off in order to attract my parents' attention and elicit some sympathy. Which was a pretty dumb thing to do because it made my mother react in the way she knows best, which is to run around screaming in panic and flailing her arms for 10mins like a headless chicken. Except chickens don't have arms. 

Or do they...?

In A&E that night, the French  doctor was like, 'Hon hee hon, oui, it eeze le sprain. Sacrebleu, your tendons are torn, hon hee hon. Zut alors, you need ze crutches and vous cannot walk for three weeks, hon hee hon. Le camembert, baguette, mais oui, hon hee hon!' (I may have paraphrased a bit for the purpose of accuracy) (Why was he speaking English to me, anyway? Weren't the fact I have a FRENCH name, a FRENCH accent, spoke FLUENT FRENCH, and kept saying 'Stop speaking to me in English with that stupid accent, I am FRENCH' in FRENCH, a bit of a giveaway? Maybe he was scared of my step-dad who is English.)

So now, after having spent many weeks at home in London drooling over my New Look sparkly 10-inch heels in tormented anguish because I can't wear them, and after various hospital visits, some new X-rays have revealed that my ankle is not only sprained but is in fact FRACTURED and is going to take months to heal. Seriously. Couldn't the NHS see the GIANT CRACK in my vestal pedula, and I dunno, make necessary recommendations for my recovery????

(OK yes, I guess the fact I used the cross-trainer at the gym for weeks despite the shooting pain in my ankle and the fact I frequently hobbled to Sainsburys without my crutches to buy lifetime supplies of Maltesers despite warnings from everyone not to... may not have been a great idea.)

But to make matters even more amazing, I have now sprained my wrist while showing off my amazing Jedi moves with my crutches to strangers staring at me in the street because I was awesome, then have fallen down the stairs again, causing me to pull my back. Perhaps in the future I will try NOT to experiment hobbling down the stairs safely with my eyes closed just to see if I have psychic powers or not.

So the lesson is...

ORGANIC GREEN TEA TIME! Hmm Maltesers.

Copyright © Caffeine Bubbles, 31 Jan 2013, London, UK

#20 Gym Rats.

You may remember my article The Library, True Love & Testosterone from my juvenile university days when I had just come out of a uterus. I expounded on the purpose of libraries which, it seems, is to cater to the needs of acne-ridden post-pubescent males in their desperate search for girls. 

 Errrm.

But...

What about us women??? Where was our daily dose of male eye candy when we needed it? Why did I waste three years of my life at a top albeit hot-guy-less uni (except for the Business and English male students. They were fit) getting a degree when I could have been doing something more productive with my life, like stalking and taking photos of hot men from behind bushes (oh wait, I did that anyway)? Why weren't there any fit guys in the Library's Chaucer section? Why did the chicken cross the road? What is the mechanism responsible for breaking the electrowek gauge symmetry, giving mass to the W and Z bosons? Why do people sneeze with their eyes closed?

Basically, why are there no hot guys in public places?

(Not that I care, seeing as I have a super hot boyfriend of my own [aka Baby Man. Yes that's what I call him. No he is not one of those weird baby mutant things. Shut up. Poo heads.]. Indeed, after dating various blokes I wasn't really interested in [sorry if any of you are reading this, it's nothing personal. I'm sure you're all wonderful and not boring at all], I finally acknowledged Baby Man's numerous attempts to woo my amazing self [including one time when he showed up at my student house in final year to serenade me with his guitar - MEGA LOL, OK it was quite romantic - then asked me out, causing me to do my Nelson-from-The-Simpsons laugh and say 'No'] [perhaps I should cool it with the parentheses]. Certes, a few months after graduation in July 2011 [with my FIRST CLASS WITH DISTINCTION THANK YOU VERY MUCH TAKE THAT MISS WOODRUFF], Baby Man and I got together in London and have now been in what they call 'a relationship' for the past year and a bit [Relationships. EWWWWWW]. To think that two years ago, I was actually cool and had boasted about wanting to end up a strong, independent, feminist business tycoon spinster with nine cats, a pink private jet and a butler in a thong. WHAT HAS MY LIFE COME DOWN TO???)

But I digress. The topic of discussion is in fact GYM RATS.

(AWWW THIS IS ACTUALLY SOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUTE!!!!! LOOK AT HIS WIDDLE EYES AND WIDDLE EARS AWWWWW)

There seems to be a higher proportion of good-looking women than there is of attractive men, making life difficult for the awesome chicks of the world. After all, how are we to get any OPTICAL respite from the harsh lives we lead? We can hardly do any chatting up due to the serious lack of eye candy, so we get chatted up instead. Which is all very nice and everything, but seriously, at the gym???

I mean, can you name one woman who LIKES answering the question 'How you doin' when her legs are spread at a 180° angle on the outer thigh machine? Or feeling your hard... BICEPS (OMG I know what you were thinking, you filthy-minded person!!!), when wearing so little to no make-up that she looks like Uncle Fester from the Addams Family? Or agreeing to go on a coffee date afterward wearing her oversized, tea-stained SpongeBob t-shirt and Oxfam pyjama trousers used as trackie bottoms?

OR when she looks and smells as if a giant Golden Retriever had relieved himself on her?


No-oh. I didn't THINK so.

Guys, just leave us alone.

I will now go make myself some organic green tea.

Copyright © Caffeine Bubbles, 24 Jan 2013, London, UK