...and don't panic! The Know brings you advice during housing
A true friend is always there for you, especially when you're drunk.
Miss Quit regresses to her childhood this week as the prospect of beginning the "University of Life" looms.
Written by Moran Sheleg
Before I begin this week’s column, I feel it necessary to make amendments to some of the claims made in the last. By this I mean that my housemates felt it necessary for me to make it clear that I did not fix the garden fence. Instead, I did what I normally do when things go wrong in the house: I ran away and hid in my room. This is bad, and Miss Quit does not condone such behaviour even though she is guilty of it.
Furthermore, it is necessary for me to state that my housemates are wonderful human beings who should be celebrated as minor deities (my hand is being held firmly behind my back as I write this). Hopefully I will be allowed back in the house now.
Anyway, back to reality and the quit afoot.
Off the back of Boris’s inauguration as Mayor of my hometown, and his somewhat controversial vow to abolish the congestion charge, I commemorated this by giving up any form of transportation other my own two legs. Now whilst this column has always been and will continue to be a politically neutral zone, I for one welcome this change. I’m no Tory, but if you don’t live in London then you can’t really understand. End of.
Governance aside, I had other reasons for wanting to wear my heels down. The beginning of summer strikes panic into the hearts of all females. Alas, bikini season is practically upon us, and we all know what that means…that’s right, bikinis. Not only was this an opportunity to tone up and shed some of those revision-induced pounds, but a chance to feel smug about my lack of CO2 emissions. What more could a girl want?
As chauffeur of the house, my car Belle and I provide a reliable service. (Her full name is Belle Du Jour, after the fictitious ‘Diary of a Call Girl’ protagonist: just like her namesake she will take anyone, anywhere, anytime for a reasonable sum of petrol money. Yes, my need to name inanimate objects is reaching worrying new heights, I know.) For supermarket trips, drives to campus when it’s raining, or lifts to work before a gruelling 5-hour shift, we’re your girls. Or we were, before last Saturday.
With the sun shining in a sun-like way, it was time to give Belle a break. I extended my abstinence to all forms of public transport too, which proved more of a mercy than a misery. Anyone who has journeyed on the Number 6 from Melrosegate to Stone Bow will vouch for that. My hatred for buses is analogous to that of Jeremy Clarkson’s, whose priceless remark about bus lanes should have earned him either a Pulitzer Prize or a slap. I can’t decide which.
So, how did I fare? Well, the blisters on my heels would suggest that I managed rather well. I’m not sure if my poor feet will ever look the same again. For some reason sunshine has a strange effect on my brain, which convinces me that flip-flops are adequate hiking footwear. They are not.
I half wish I had one of those little gadgets that clock the amount of footsteps/miles you take. At a guess, I would guesstimate about 1.5 million, easy. By the state of my toes it should be that many. Yet just as my image of a walking saint was to be solidified, failure tripped me up. Isn’t it funny how a night out can blow you out of the water in spectacular fashion? Or should I say, run over your ambitions like a stray cat on the M1.
You see, as soon as I step into a pair of heels, all of my sense goes out of the window. I think it is probably down to the sudden change in air pressure and altitude. It goes right to my head. I am not the tallest of people (a slight understatement, perhaps), so I have a Napoleon complex at the best of times, but get me into a pair of four-inch beauties and I feel positively dictatorial. Forget walking, I needed a cab, and I needed one NOW.
It would seem that the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. I was driven straight down it in a Streamline cab. Darned Volvo. Oh well, at least I got a student discount. Not that you can put a price on un-crippled toes.
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