ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

When I was young I thought of growing old

Of what my life would mean to me

Would I have followed down my chosen road?

Or only wished what I could be?

Go ahead, Mr. Wendel. 

Heard a saying not too long ago - "If you don't do it before you're 40, you probably never will."  Well, I turn 40 tomorrow and that's depressing.  Since I turned 24, February 7th (Aquarians rule!) is my least favourite day of the year and this one is particularly upsetting.  40!  Fuck Off!  Like, how did this happen?  Who's okay with 40?  Old people - sure.  But for the young (at heart) and beautiful, it's so not cool.  And sure, this is an opportunity to feel sorry for myself - and naturally I will - but I'll try not to dwell on it too much and bring you, the reader (aka: valuable advertising dollars) down as well.


Seriously, it wasn't that long ago when I was chasing Robin Talbot around at Sunningdale Public School (landed her too - result!) and looking forward to the day when I could grow a moustache (eventually did cultivate a beauty - result!).  And now here I am, roughly 30 years later, with no moustache and a disturbing amount of grey chest hair.  The timing of the latter, which couldn't be worse.  I've never had great chest hair - it wasn't pathetic but it was far from Hasselhoff pedigree.  I took a manscaping cue from Don "The Predator" Frye who would buzz his down (not shaved) and figured that might work for me.  Even things out.  I was doing that for a few years.  Got tired of it and stopped trimming about two months ago - and Sweet Maria - bad timing.  There's a lot of grey going on now.  And these things tend to work their way down.  In the meantime, I'll worry about heart attacks and the size of my prostate.

And unlike Mr. Wendel, nobody calls me "Mister" either.  But that's okay because unless there's some Brownie at my door selling me shit Girl Guide cookies, I really don't want anyone implying some sort of elder status. Which is kind of easy here in the UK because everyone looks old and thinks I'm 30.  Although my llifestyle may play into that as well.  I now work in a job that has the professional status and financial drawing power in line with what a 19 year-old would be doing.  And not to go completely off the rails here but I got my first UK credit card the other day.  The credit limit?  Are you ready for this?  £260.  That's about $400 CAD.  How humiliating is that?  That's the credit limit of a pedophile who's declared bankruptcy multiple times.

And since I'm just going to moan about being old and poor now...  Yes, this is an exciting new life and all that crap.  But hands down the toughest thing about it all is living with other people.  Having flatmates as they say here.  Which is common but I hate it.  "Hell" - to quote Jean-Paul Sartre - "is other people".  Especially after being on your own for a decade.  Bathroom door always open.  No pants, no problem.  But aside from the loss of those liberties, it's the annoyance of the habits of others that we all know become the straws on that unlucky camel's back.  The couple I live with are decent people and we're all pretty civilized.  But there's some things I just can't handle.  The woman of the house has this bizarre ritual of hanging a plastic shopping bag off the kitchen door handle to put garbage in when she cooks.  It makes no sense on paper but I've attached a photo of our kitchen to give you an idea of why this is even more freakish than it sounds -

The silver thing is the bin.  The burlap Tesco bag is for the recycling (which I had to put there - the lack of recycling in Scotland is disgusting).  You can't see the stove and counter but trust me - it's closer to the garbage can than that orange Sainsbury bag is.  I took this photo when I got home from work one night which was about 1:00am so it's not like it's chucked in the bin after use.

Want to know what's inside?

A whole bunch of chicken bones and veg scraps (and a few things which could have been recycled!).  And here's the killer - it was still hanging there when I got home the next night.  Minging!

No, this is not the life of your average 40 year old.





Post Script - It's a couple of weeks later and I've just finished a grueling week at work (and I will get back to yapping about my job).  I finally have two days off to chill and engage with the civilized world.  I wake up Sunday...noonish...go to the bathroom and look in the mirror only to see a huge red sore in the corner of my mouth.  This is terrifying.  More than anything, my biggest fear about working in a kitchen is oral herpes (genital, not so much).  In the heat of battle it's pretty frenetic and you're always scrambling for a spoon and you're not too sure about where it was and you're not too sure about how well it was cleaned and you're not too sure about what the people you work with have living in their blood.  And I've dodged the bullets so far.  But if this turns out to be my biggest fear....goddamn.  I'm 40 and poor.  And if I'm now condemned to a life of lip sores I will surely die all alone.  I will die all alone just like that dude from Degrassi...