My parents recently left to Europe on holidays for six weeks. Normally, this would mean that I would be stuck with some hired help, who would cook dinner, drive me places and help keep the house clean. It sounds like a sweet deal, but the hired help was also very often a lonely, middle-aged odd-job who believed in numerology and who would trust that your parents sometimes let you have ice cream for dinner but not accept that they would let you have more than two beers on a Saturday night. This meant of course, tax or no tax, that teenage binge drinking until the old bat was bearable became impossible. As a result, I was forced to suffer through long nights of being told that my birth-number would bring great power, coupled with great sacrifice, and listen to her fascinating stories about the time she recued her neighbour’s cat using her favourite Indian cookbook and a curling iron, or that time she thought she saw Gordon Ramsay, and it turned out to be the postman, but she fainted anyway. I do miss her breakfasts though.
Anyway, this time I am home alone. I must cook, drive, feed the dog and maintain the household. Thankfully our faithful and highly-esteemed Argentinean cleaning lady is helping me do the washing and ironing. For the most part, however, this experience is a new one for me, and with uni exams coming up, I hope it won’t be too stressful. Let me reveal to you how it’s been going so far…
Day one. 8:00am
Wave goodbye to my parents at the door. They would wave back, but they’re already thinking about the glasses of champagne they’ll be sipping as they laugh about our comparative short term futures. Shut the door to the sound of screeching tires and my father’s voice yelling “GO, GO, GOOO!”
8:07am
After several minutes waving at the door, overcome the shock of being left alone in a big house for six weeks.
8:08am
Begin walking around in my underpants, leaving the bathroom door open and drinking out of the carton whilst singing out of key at the top of my lungs.
8:10am
Shave, then slap aftershave on my face with two hands and scream the house down. Laugh at my own joke, before having second thoughts about whether that was in the first Home Alone or Home Alone 2.
8:15am
Confirm that he did so in both movies.
9:30am
Realise that the cleaner is due any minute. Abandon all plans to make elaborate traps for criminals involving honey and marbles. Clean up honey and marbles before cleaner gets here.
9:50am
Cleaner gets here with a badly burnt hand. I forgot about that red hot door knob one.
10:00 am
Watch her brush off third degree burns as nothing, before observing her make a bed with one hand and both feet in less than 20 seconds.
10:05am
Realise I have to go to uni to hand in an essay.
10:06am-2:59pm
Do nothing, just because I can. Use time to think up hilarious title for next blog. Settle for the first one I come up with.
3:00pm
Remember that I have the worst sense of direction in the world and I have never driven to uni before because I have never had a car free. Decide that I must take the train with my essay in hand.
4:30 pm
Get home annoyed that it took 90 minutes (round trip) to perform the thirty second task of dropping an essay into a box. Decide I should really just get a Gregory’s.
4:31pm
Forget about my worries by sliding across the floor in cotton socks, a button up shirt and sunglasses.
4:32pm
Get up off the floor rubbing my bum, deciding such business is perhaps too risky. Laugh again to no-one in particular.
5:00pm
Think about doing some uni work. Remember that I’m doing an Arts degree. Watch some TV.
7:00pm
Eat some Mi Goreng noodles. Write this blog.
As you can see, there isn’t a lot of work going on. Exams are in 19 days. I go to uni eleven hours a week for thirteen weeks a semester. That’s 143 hours, or 5.9 twenty-four hour days. Carry the one, subtract sleep. I have twelve days before I need to study. I hope this doesn’t equal trouble.