Epic Fails of My Life

So after my last post caused widespread upset and offense, I decided that it was in poor taste, not very fair and undeniably, an epic fail.


I lay awake worrying about it until I decided I would just learn from the experience and add it to the list of my other misdemeanors and epic fails of the past.

And so readers, I have decided to balance out the scales a little by sharing with you some other of my epic fails. Hopefully you are entertained by at least one of my little anecdotes.  As you read, try and imagine the level of humiliation one might experience following an event of this nature, and then laugh as you remember that only a truly stupid person would allow it to happen.

I once attempted to flirt with a guy whilst grocery shopping.  I decided it might be fun to throw witty banter in his general direction whilst "skating" with my hips balancing on the trolley handle.  This works well when the trolley is heavy and weighed down with groceries.  One can have quite the pleasant journey along a supermarket aisle.  Unfortunately on this occasion, we had only covered the fruit and veg sections of the supermarket and the trolley was unable to counter my weight.  Needless to say, within an instant, I found myself pinned on my back by an inverted supermarket trolley.  Apples and oranges rolled past my head as I processed this unfortunate downturn of luck.  Looking down on me was my crush who (with much pity and some embarrassment) said, "That was really uncool."

I once decided that I didn't like having a widow's peak.  My aversion dated back to being forced to play the witch in playground games of "Witches and Fairies".  Of course someone has to be the witch, and being afflicted with a widow's peak means that one is immediately shunned to the coven.  As an adult, I justified my distaste for this inconveniently positioned hairline as limiting to my modern look.  There was no way I was going to be able to pull off the much adored Gwyneth Platrow pixie cut with a whopping big arrow head of hair pointing in the direction of my fairly ordinary nose.  So, in a late night, mirror staring moment, I shaved it off.  Yeah.  I did.  And for the next year I was forced to explain myself to many a confused hair stylist.  "You did what??!!"  Let's just say I had something very odd growing out of my head for some time.

I once skipped a whole page of dialogue whilst on stage.  Whilst the plot went out the window and my fellow thespians struggled madly to establish some sense of order, I was fixed wholeheartedly on saying my favourite line in the script.  You can imagine my disappointment when my hilarious comedy moment fell flat as a pancake as the audience members whispered in confused tones to each other.  I walked off stage, rolling my eyes and muttering, "Shit audience tonight huh?".

I once left seven kids in a classroom reading room and took the other 23 to the local oval for sport.  We were gone an hour.  It wasn't until we were almost back at the school (a good 15 minute walk away) that I realised I was missing seven boys.  As my voice escalated in panic, a couple of the kids in my class said, "Oh yeah, you left the green group in the reading room."  We were gone an hour.  An hour!!!  On return, the boys waved from the playground lunch area.  "You forgot us!!  Hahahahaha."

I once had a tampon fall out of my pocket in the high school canteen line.  I was 16.  I have no idea if anyone saw it but people began pointing and laughing at it lying on the asphalt.  I joined in of course.  "Oh my god (pre-OMG days obviously), what loser dropped that tampon?!! That is SO wrong."

So you see, I have had some absolute shockers. In fact, I should re-title this post "Epic Fails of My Life: Part One".  Because I have enough material here to write a thesis.

No. I don't have a type.

In the space of a year I have been attracted to an large number of men.  There's nobody in particular that has the focus of my attention at this point in time, however it needs to be said that I probably find myself attracted to new men every day.

When I say attracted, I am not signing my life away or anything.  I mean, there may not even be any actual interaction with that individual.

What is interesting is the variety.

Sometimes even I am flabbergasted by what catches my eye.  Whilst my friends will tell you I'm a sucker for a hot nerd, I submit that I do not, and will never have, a type.

As proof I offer the following list of people to whom I have found myself (strangely at times) attracted.  It is quite possible that my gentlemen readers might indeed find themselves on this list.  If you do recognise yourself, please don't be scared.  The attraction may very well have been fleeting.  I may never have intended to act on it.  I am fully aware of your unavailability and make no attempt at securing your affection.  I ask that you merely accept it for what it is:  A nod of appreciation.

So here goes.  In no particular order, over the past year I have found myself attracted to:

* A director of a play I was in.  I liked that he taught me something new.  I was also a little scared of him and that is a rare thing for me.  He was probably one of the more charismatic people I've met lately.

* A guy who plays guitar and several other instruments and is one of the most quirky, odd guys I've met.  He gives off this vibe of intense nonchalance which I find engaging if at times bizarre and hard to read.  He falls into the Talent Hot category which my friend and I have discussed at length.

* A tradesman.  Actually, several tradesmen.  There is something undeniably sexy about men who are useful with tools.  They are generally good with their hands and extremely masculine.  A special nod of thanks to whomever invented the Bonds wife-beater.

* A DILF from school.  Actually, several DILFs from school.  See previous post for further explanation.

* The guy who is renovating the flat next door to mine.  He isn't Swedish but I pretend he is.  He wears overalls and cleans his paintbrushes outside my bedroom window.  He has one of the best asses I've seen in a long time.  He also has about five degrees.  Handy and clever.

* Craig Silvey.  The guy who wrote Jasper Jones.  I don't even know what he looks like but this was my favourite book of the year and whoever was genius enough to pen this book already has my heart.

* A Kiwi lawyer/surfer who I went out with on what I thought was a great date. He was irreverent and took the piss out of me on one or two occasions.  I like a bit of that.  He never called and therefore was "Not that into me".

* A small Scottish lad with a broken heart.  A very complicated situation.  Heh heh.

* A smart guy living in a shitty part of Sydney, who is clever but pretends not to be.  He lifts weights and has a lot of silver chains happening.  A total shocker.

* A friend's boyfriend's wayward but very funny brother.  Possibly the biggest smart arse I've met.  Smart and a car crash at the same time.  A wasted mind.

* A guy who I met a few years ago and haven't seen since.  He moved to Melbourne and his wife is having their first baby.  He is just lovely in every way.  He's attractive because he never pretends to be anything but exactly who he is.  His Lego obsession is slightly odd though.  I follow him on Facebook and Twitter and he always makes me laugh.  When I understand what he is saying, that is.

* Christina Hendricks.  Ok, so she's not a bloke.  But she is just so beautiful.

So You tell me. Is there a pattern?  I can't see one.

Keeping up with Kissing

I've noticed some recent changes in kissing trends recently.

Apparently we don't shake hands with anyone anymore.  It has been my experience that kissing has replaced the introductory handshake in many social situations.  The only exception I can find for this is the workplace, where since none of us are really happy to see anyone at work, we want to keep touch to a minimum.  Lately it seems I'm kissing everyone and as I'm leaning in to kiss them on the cheek I am also saying, "It's so nice to meet you."  Well it must be nice to meet them otherwise why would I feel the need to attach my lips to their head?

There's a worrying stage to any kiss.  It's the unspoken moment of acknowledgement that both parties are somehow going to have to participate for it to work.  The introductory kiss is made more awkward if one party has ignorantly and unfashionably gone in for a handshake. To their surprise and distress they are likely to have their body literally dragged in for the kiss.  I love when this is followed by comments made to dilute the nervous tension in the air.  "Hahahaha! Oh we're so European these days..."

More awkward than the hello kiss is the goodbye kiss when you really don't know someone.  You can imagine the situation can't you?  You turn up at a barbeque with friends and you may have been introduced to someone at a distance as you arrive.  You probably spend the day talking to a small group of people and then when it comes time to leave you go around the room kissing everyone you know.  It is then that you realise there is only one person in the room you don't know at all.  You were told each other's names three hours ago but you literally haven't said a word to them since "hello".  You have kissed every single person in the room goodbye.  Every single person.  And here you have arrived at the last unknown soldier.  Do you just wave and say "See ya"?  I have often kissed this person because I don't want them to feel left out.  The poor bastard is thinking, "Please lady, don't do it, I don't need your pity."

And now to my favourite...

The "We Are Going To Have To Have Sex Now" Kiss.

This is for the over thirties only folks.  Those of you in your twenties will still recognise the kiss but it might have a different name.  The Pash.  The French kiss.  The Tongue sambo. The Tonsil Tickler.  Or The Dance Floor Hack.

This type of kissing is a strange thing.  Somehow it can be the most erotic, pleasurable and sensuous of experiences.  Yet it has the potential to be messy, unhealthy and uncomfortable as well. Personally, I love it.  Have always done.  Once you let yourself get your head beyond what it is you are actually doing with your mouth and the mouth of the other person, it is the sexiest thing you can do with a person. Well almost.

In your thirties this kiss is basically a gate way to sex.  For married people, I believe it is somewhat of a "Do Not Pass Go/Do not collect $200" situation.  That meaning, if both parties let the kiss happen, it means they both have to follow through and have sex.  NOT that this should be a bad thing (please refer to my earlier post).  I have friends who will avoid this type of kissing for this reason.  They miss it.  They want to kiss in a sexual way without it leading to sex.  Alas, it is impossible.

For the over-thirties single person, engaging in this type of kissing only serves as a reminder of what you would like to be doing more often.  So you will also be thinking a lot about sex and will probably try and make it happen shortly after.

I recall that in my twenties, it was still possible to meet someone and kiss them in this way, and not have sex.  It seems a long time ago and I'm happy to hear of any changes to this status.

In your teens, pashing is all about numbers.  You need to go out there and kiss as many people as you can.

Someone recently told me that I didn't seem like a hugger.  Well unless you are my smelly great aunt or a really revolting sleazy man, you're right.  I'm a kisser.

You're not that cool, you work in a shop.

I have a couple of friends who work in retail so before I continue, this post is not about them.  Just getting that out there before the tirade begins.

Firstly, what is it with sales assistants pretending to be interested in your life?  We both know they don't give a shit either way.  I find particular types of retailers to be major offenders of this type of over-familiarity.  Surf/urban/hip/street wear type shops seem to train their staff in this sales "technique".  The staff tend to be about 12 years old and appear to have been employed because they are the only people who can fit into the clothing sold in these establishments.  Unfortunately the only people who can afford to shop in these stores are my age or older. Here is a sample of an actual experience I had in such a store:

Saleschild:  Big night planned?
Me:  Sorry?
Saleschild:  I was just asking if you had a big night planned tonight.
Me: Oh.  Um.  No.
Saleschild:  Really??  (Initially shocked but then gives knowing grin) Did you have a big one last night?
Me: Ah, not really.  Just a few wines at my mates place.
Saleschild: Wow, that sounds awesome. I totally feel like doing that tonight as well.  It's just what you feel like after a massive day isn't it?
Me: Yeah.  It was ok.
Saleschild:  So can I give you a hand with sizes?
Me:  Um, yeah.  Do you have this top in a size 14?
Saleschild:  Actually that's a dress but I guess you could wear it as a top.  I've never seen anyone do that before but you could totally pull that off. I don't think we have any 14's in that brand.  Let me just check out the back honey.
Me:  Thanks, that'd be great.  (Waits for saleschild to pretend to look for size 14 garment and does the bolt)


Looking back it would have been fun to have approached the conversation like this:

Saleschild:  Big night planned?
Me:  Yeah actually.  It's going to be awesome, super fun.  Honey, my mates and I are planning to snort lines of cocaine off a dwarf's head, Freddy Mercury style.  Oh, and I think I might wear this skirt as a belt.  By the way, you should eat something.  Your arms are getting a little hairy as your skin attempts to counter your lack of body fat.

Worse than the overly interested yet seriously disinterested pre-teen sales assistant is the "I'm wearing the clothes you can't afford to buy bitch" bitch. Everyone has encountered this particular type of shop worker. You walk into the stylish boutique for a browse and she barely raises her eyes from a glossy magazine.  She's dressed head to toe in the label.  She might throw a smile your way but she doesn't smile with her eyes. She is bored beyond belief and this is what she says:

"Let me know if I can help you with anything."

What she is thinking is:

"Listen lady, just piss off okay?  I'm not getting off this stool for the likes of you.  You can't afford anything in here and quite frankly, even if you could, the only thing you could buy is that scarf over there because we only sell things in single digit sizes.  Clearly you lack the funds and I can see from your high-riding arse crack, you are not going to fit into anything here."

Well this is what I want to say to you shop girl:

"YOU WORK IN A BLOODY SHOP!!!  That's what you do for a living.  And whilst the world needs retailers, you are doing a piss-easy, ridiculously unimportant thing.  If you weren't given an eighty percent discount on everything in here, you wouldn't be able to afford it either!  So get off your stool before I make your relationship with it much more permanent.  Let me say it again: YOU WORK IN A SHOP!!

And I'd like to buy that scarf now please."

You can therefore you should...have sex that is.

Ok married women of the world.  I don't get it.  You have access to a perfectly good, consensual partner everyday of your lives and yet you have reluctant sex every six months or so.

I understand you have small children who wake inconveniently and at strange hours.  I understand that you don't feel sexy when your pyjamas are stained with breast milk and your hair has mashed banana in it.  I understand that you have seventeen thousand other priorities and foremost of these is the replenishment of the years of sleep you are owed.  I understand that your partner is basically useless in terms of assisting you in the parenting of your children...try as he might, he can't do what a set of boobs can for a baby.  I understand that at times you might resent the poor bastard as he swans through the door at seven at night after a hard day's work and comments on the untidy state of the kitchen.  I understand that your vagina has been through a degree of torture that is unthinkable to me and my non-breeding peers.

Nevertheless...

Lying next to you every night is a perfectly good penis attached to a perfectly good man.  Whilst we single ladies have many things you don't have (regular manicures, unscheduled daytime naps, weekend sleep-ins, privacy, unlimited drinking opportunities, no responsibility at all, etc etc), we think it unfair that you should not take advantage of your situation more regularly.

Several of you have even admitted that while most of the time although the thought of sex is actually repulsive to you, when you actually engage in it you seem to remember why you once enjoyed it.  Sex is free.  Sex is fun. Sex is the one thing you could do that would have absolutely nothing to do with your children.  Unless of course you are doing that weird attachment parenting which means your baby will be way too close and might psych you out of any erotic endeavour).

So on behalf of all the people for whom abstinence is not a choice, GET ON WITH IT.  If you can't remember how its done I can recommend some websites that should provide enough visual cues to get the balls rolling (sorry, I couldn't help myself).

Punching above weight and getting KO'd.

Do you ever have those days where you are convinced that you are a really attractive person? No really.  Have you ever left the house and thought, damn, I look good.  I'm actually a really good looking person.  I've been underselling myself for years.  Actually, now that I review it, I might even go so far as to label myself sexy today. (Just go with it kids, I'll reality base in a paragraph or two).

So one leaves the house and enters the world with a newly found spring in one's step.  Eye contact is made with the devilishly handsome and maintained for just that second too long.  Outfits selected from the racks are just beyond one's normal safety zone of comfort and practicality.  One walks tall with shoulders back and breasts (yes I know I go on about them) heading in a forward direction.

And then, you see a mirror.

And there it is.  That "Ah shit" feeling.  Is that what I really look like??  And it's like you've just met yourself for the first time in thirty-something years and had actually no idea of your appearance.  It's actually a sad little sort of disappointment.  It's like your head is reminding you of the reality of your situation.  Um, yes, sorry to put it bluntly but you are indeed average looking.  Your head has many flaws and your body is slowly accepting the idea that an investment in cosmetic surgery is no longer something that one might mock.

So it was in one of these moments that my friend Rocket and I decided we were punching above weight.  And worse still, that we hadn't thrown a punch in ages.  We just seem to like men who are way more attractive than ourselves.  Perhaps we should carry a hand mirror next time we sit on the beach and giggle at the guy in the budgie smugglers.  Or perhaps I should ask him out.  :)

Dear Santa...here's what I need.

Dear Santa

Here is my list of stuff that I want. Fortunately for you and unfortunately for me I've not been naughty at all lately so you had better deliver.

1. I would like my hangovers to get better each time rather than worse. I would like to wake up after two or three wines and spring out of bed like the eighteen year old shop assistants do. You know the ones? They are irritating in their bubbly, effervescent and completely manufactured interest in your life. Yet you just know they were bouncing off the walls four hours ago on Jaeger Bombs.

2. I would like my arse crack to desist in its mission of world domination. Stupidly I have a mirror in front of my loo at home. When I stand up I often think, "It could be worse, things aren't too hideous, let me just check the behind view....Jesus WEPT!! How massive is my arse??!"

3. I would like the producers of modern porn to start hiring attractive men. It can't be a rule of nature that only ugly men have big penises. Why should women have to watch ugly men have sex? I mean, if Bambi or whatever her name is, is going to sigh and moan and scream about the guy she's with, it's going to be a lot more convincing if he doesn't look like the 50 year old roadie from a Guns and Roses concert.

4. I would like to be attracted to someone who is attracted to me. I know this is asking a lot Santa. And I know that there really aren't that many fish in the sea. But it seems to me a little cruel that I have no trouble getting the attention of the 65 year old guy with a limp and a missing tooth who takes the reading from my electricity meter, yet the men I (rarely) meet for whom I feel an instant spark are usually approaching me to ask me about whether my friend is single.

5. I would like someone to invent a decent umbrella. Raincoats are ridiculous. Umbrellas are annoying, inefficient, painful to carry and only protect your upper third from rain. How is it that we are now in 2010 and we still have inadequate protection from precipitation?!

6. I would like my blog post to reach 100000 hits. I want it viral. I want the world. I want the whole world. I want everyone to realise without me typing it, that I just stole the last two lines from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

7. I want someone to invent small talk that isn't boring. They should write a book that becomes so universally accepted that it will one day be fine to start a conversation in the following manner:

"Hi nice to meet you. Did you mean for your hair to look like that when you left home?"

"Hi. No actually, a bird shat on it on the way and I had to find a public toilet and hand dryer. So are you aware that I only want to meet you because my mother is concerned that I don't put myself out there enough and I just want her to stop nagging?"

"Yeah, that's fine. I'm kind of hoping you'll introduce me to your friend anyway. She has great tits and I bet she goes like the clappers."

"People tell me she does although she doesn't really go for men who look like David Hasselhoff when he was in Knight Rider so I'm not sure how you'll do."

"Cool, well when I get bored talking to you, do you reckon you could introduce me anyway?"

"Sure, it'll be a laugh for both of us won't it?"

"Exactly"

8. I want a national DILF day. I'm not really sure how this would work but it would have something to do with there being an amnesty on approaching DILFs and saying the great unsaid. "Excuse me, but do you even realise how hot you are right now? I mean, there aren't many men who can carry a small child and a pool pony at the same time and look sexy, but you do."

9. I want Johanna Griggs removed from my television screen. Is there a show that that woman hasn't done?? She's a massive cheese ball with seriously wide shoulders and boring hair.

10. I want re-gifting to become an accepted past-time. So instead of lame office organised Kris Kringle, you have to re-gift something of your own. This is me doing my bit for the environment. It's also my way of getting rid of the hideous stuff I've been given over the years. I've never been good at faking excitement so I'm not sure why people insist on giving me ugly and stupid things for Christmas. I'm sorry I made you cry but don't wrap things in duck-egg blue boxes and expect anything but scorn if it isn't a gift from Tiffany's.

11. I'd like something from Tiffany's. It ain't gonna happen.