Antipo's Six Non-Weird Traits Meme

The Lovely Nina tagged me and dared me to reveal my six weirdest traits to the blogosphere. It's a fruitless exercise, as I am simply the most normal person who ever lived. There is nothing weird or peculiar about me at all. See for yourselves:

1) As a little girl I loved to strip the seeds off dried grasses in the summer, sprinkle handfuls of them onto my head and spend hours picking them out of my hair, one by one. I am definitely descended from the apes. So what?

2) I sniff my thumbnail when I'm concentrating very hard: it smells nice and comforts me. It protects me from the vicissitudes of life. No, I did not say 'viscosity'. But, if my life were particularly viscous, I am quite convinced that the smell of my thumbnail would protect me from that unpleasantness too.

3) I am reallly quite graceful when dancing or swimming, but hopelessly clumsy in real life. Owing to my lack of stature, the most annoying thing that happens to me on a daily basis is catching my wide dressing gown sleeve on a door handle when carrying a very hot and very full cup of tea from the kitchen to my favourite cosy armchair.

4) I love to criticise others but cannot accept the slightest slight on my own character. It's simply because I am always right, and everyone else is always wrong. Why don't people understand that? Surely it's a well known fact?

5) I cannot bear to do what other people tell me I should do. I'll immediately go and do the opposite, even (or especially) if it's detrimental to my own health. Just to prove who's boss.

6) I love the smell of melting tar on a hot day. That's not even weird. I'm a total failure at weirdness. I know you all do these things too.

7) I'm really not happy if I have to eat a broken biscuit. I've been like this for over forty years. I am not going to change now.

8) As I'm obviously wracking my brains trying to prove that I can be a little bit weird sometimes (just wanna fit it with the rest of you), I turned to The Lovely Ms. Mac for help. Bless her, she thinks I'm perfect in every way too. Most of the time.

But strangely, she suggested I include the Catherine Tate YouTube video about the woman who jumps at everyday noises.....



Ms. Mac says, and I quote: "You know it's a little bit like you, especially when we come to stay!"

I have NO IDEA WHAT SHE'S TALKING ABOUT.

Jober As A Sudge

Evidently two and a half glasses of rosé are my limit in the evenings. I never really mastered the art of imbibing, despite my fours years as a student.

I worked my arse off in the office today (now there's a funny look, but my jeans fit really well) and was very proud to score two new clients for the company. When I got home with the kids, French Hubby had gone out to Paris for les soldes, the January sales. He’s a real girl and loves shopping. I’m a typical boy and hate it.

So in his absence I was able to unwind by indulging in my secret guilty pleasure: listening to classic hits from the 70s and 80s on LOUD, while cooking dinner (soft tacos with minced beef, spicey sauce, spring onions, grated cheese, Batavia lettuce, roquette, avocadoes, fresh lime juice, sour cream, sea salt and masses of pepper, thank you for asking) and sipping rosé. When the one-hit wonder Prefab Sprout came on, singing “Hot dog, jumping frog, Albuquerque”, my kids loved it. Dear God, what did that song actually mean? How easily we were entertained in 1984!

I got really excited when Yazz and the Plastic Population came on, singing “The Only Way Is Up! Bay-Bee! For you and me now”. My God, but she was a beautiful girl: so bouncey and so smiley! I wonder what she’s doing now?

So anyway, Hub eventually came home brandishing an Athletes’ Gear carrier bag. I peered blearily inside to see what bargains he had come home with, and spied an enormous plastic bag filled with what looked like thousands and thousands of white shoelaces for tennis shoes.

“My God!” quoth I. “You’ve got us a lifetime supply of shoelaces! How thoughtful of you, Darling.”

He looked at me strangely. I moved the bag into the light, looked again and discovered it was a bag of fresh pasta. Tagliatelli, to be precise.

I’ll stick to orange juice this weekend.

Oh, The Horror

Do you remember when you were at primary school there was always one poor child, usually retarded, who always smelled of poo?

Well today I am that child.

It's driving me mad. I can smell it. I don't dare ask if anybody else can. Naturally I have checked the soles of my shoes. Living in France means running the risk of daily encounters with dangerously fresh dog shit that may lurk under every fallen leaf. I have even been to the loo to check that my own bottom is perfectly clean.

It is.

But still I can smell something awful. Is there a medical condition to explain this? Could my olfactory receptors be hallucinating completely independently of my brain? Please help!

Or if you can't send advice, please send money so I can buy perfume.

Back To Bosoms

At work today I accidentally signed off an email to a client by typing:

"Brest wishes, Antipo".

I like it so much and I'm so very naughty, that I am going to do it deliberately, in all my business communications, always, for ever and ever.