I was on my way out for dinner at a friend's tonight. I had just got back from the supermarket and had packed most things away, but a few items were on the work surface. If you are interested I had only bought five yoghurts at the shop and only got that many as they were on offer - five for two pounds. It was only when I saw the items being checked through that I realised this multi-purchase had saved me ten pence. I had got two pence off each yoghurt!! What a con. Sainsbury's make you feel like you're getting a good deal and make you buy more yoghurts than you might have bought, but it isn't a good deal and then their check-out assistants can say "Someone Likes Yoghurt" and you have no recourse to complain.
Anyway, I was taking some wine and vegetables round to my friend's and put those in a carrier bag, but I also wanted to put my squash kit in the car as I am playing squash in the morning and while I was at it I thought I would take my three carrier bags full of plastic for recycling out to the the car as well. I was loaded down with four carrier bags, a sports bag with a squash racquet in it and also my squash shoes (that would have fit in the bag but which I chose to carry separately). Now some men might have thought that this was enough stuff to be carrying in one trip, but just as I was about to go out I decided I fancied eating one of the sticks of liquorice I had just bought at Sainsbury's (I had bought 11 sticks, but the man at the check-out made no comment). I had already put the liquorice up in the cupboard, but obviously I wasn't going to put all the bags and shoes down before attempting to get the liquorice. It had taken me a while to get all the bags and shoes into my arms and I wasn't going to go through all that again. And I figured that I could do this. I still had half a finger free to reach up.
So I carried on with my insane plan, without thinking of the consequences. But as I reached up one of the bags knocked over a bottle of balsamic vinegar that was on the counter. I tutted and reached over to pick it up, at which point one of the other bags caught on a bottle of regular vinegar and brought it crashing to the floor. The vinegar bottle smashed sending glass and vinegar all over my trouser leg and one of my new trainers. I mean I had no-one to blame but myself. How could I not have guessed that this was going to happen? Why had I tried to keep hold of so many things when all practicality dictated that I couldn't help but cause mayhem.
And I was late for dinner and so this awful mess was the worst thing that could happen. My brand new trainers were going to be as fucked up as the ones I had left to the mercy of the elements and my trousers smelled of vinegar and there was glass and acetic acid all over my kitchen floor. Even in real life I am as funny and ridiculous as the most outlandish comedy sketch I can write.
Conscious of time passing by I went to put all the stuff in the car. I hadn't even put it down after this calamity and was considering just setting off and leaving the mess on the floor and the mess on myself, but I realised I had to go back and try and save my trainers at least. I took them off and left the vinegary one to soak, then I picked up the big bits of glass from the kitchen, considered mopping the floor, but elected instead to just cover the mess with newspaper and try and forget about it. Then I got on my way.
As I drove away, my car slowly filling with vinegar fumes from my trousers I considered the poetic justice of smashing a bottle of regular vinegar whilst trying to right a bottle of balsamic vinegar. It was symbollic of the way my life has changed in the last few years. In the old days, regular vinegar was good enough for me, but now, although I like a bit of it on my fish occasionally, I have largely eschewed the Sarsons in favour of poncy expensive Balsamic. Just as I have eschewed proper sensible shoes for the trainers of the young. That the vinegar should smash onto my trainers seems to be some kind of metaphorical satire of my life and the way I have changed. Though if the vinegar gods are reading, it would have been a more effective satire to have the balsamic vinegar smash on to my trainers. It would, I am assuming, be much more difficult to clean off and would be all I deserved.
Mainly though I am an idiot for trying to reach for liquorice when I had my hands full.
I am an idiot. That is the theme here.
I saw the latest edit of "You Can Choose Your Friends" this morning and it's looking really good, I think. I am all right in it and everyone else is brilliant and there have been some effective cuts and only two or three minutes to lose until it's the right length. It felt like a proper TV show. A slightly weird TV show in which nothing much happens and people talk and laugh and fall in and out of water. But a proper one. Fingers crossed that ITV like it too.
