Practically Horizontal...

What are good friends for if not to point out when you’re being completely delusional?

I didn’t realise there were any personality flaws left that hadn’t already been brilliantly and publically illuminated upon my grand entrance to motherhood. Patience? Didn’t have as much of that as I’d hoped. Tolerance – no, none of that either. Selflessness – it’s a daily struggle. Materialism – I just like pretty things, preferably luxury goods, purchased in bulk.

But there was one redeeming quality I still possessed. My laid back attitude to life.
“Where shall we eat?” my friend asked as we tottered precariously over the cobbled streets of Bellagio.
“I don’t mind” I replied. “I’m laid back”.
“No you’re not!” she laughed, scanning my face for signs it was all a big joke.
“I am too!” I exclaimed, outraged.
“Name one thing you’re laid back about!”
I took a moment. “Excess baggage charges” I replied triumphantly. I’d hardly batted an eyelid when slapped with a £35 charge and a ‘heavy’ label for my bulging suitcase.
“That doesn’t count! What about the fact you were praying in tongues on the flight and went to the loo six times? ”
“Aeroplanes are unnatural” I responded, cursing as one of my heels got caught in a drain. “And I have a sensitive stomach”. I clung to her arm whilst bending down to yank at my most recent purchase currently being mauled by one of the most impractical walking surfaces I’d ever encountered. I muttered under my breath –“stupid place for a drain...cobbles...rubbish...haven’t they heard of tarmac?”
“You were like it on the ferry too!” her voice badgered me from above, unwilling to let the debate slide.
“Same principle. The science is all wrong. Big, heavy items, constructed of metal, are not suited to floating.”

With an almighty effort, my shoe came free. I spent the next five minutes mourning the savage attack of my innocent shoe and ranting about suing the Mayor and the Town Planners office.

“What about that guy you had a go at for pushing in the queue!” She was back again, like a mosquito desperate for blood.
“He had it coming “. Appearing from nowhere and sidling up to us as if he were a long lost friend after we’d been queuing for check-in for an hour, was a mistake on his part. I merely pointed this out to him, and the people behind us. They told the people behind them, who told the people behind them. There was a ripple of applause as he skulked to the back of the queue, with his little wheelie case between his legs. I smiled all the way home (between toilet visits).

“And the fact you left your husband a 20 page typed and bound manual entitled ‘Housewifery for Morons’?”

I looked at her calmly before saying. “You can cite examples all day, my dear friend, but I don’t care because I’m sooooo laid back!”