Au secours! TK Maxx Syndrome Revisited

Oh, bugger! Oh, sod it! It's a calamity, I tell you.


Now what the hell am I going to do?


You know when I told you about my lovely evening gown... I wasn't exactly telling you the whole truth; I was being a bit of an, ahem, unreliable narrator... Qui? Moi? Yes, me. You may have noticed that I sometimes embellish just a weansie bit; well, this time I pared. 


It would appear that decent, pleasant men are like buses - you stand there for ages getting wet, cold, windblown, with your mascara dribbling down your face as you stare hopelessly into the distance, and then, lo and behold, several all at the same time.


Or, indeed, men are not only like buses - also very much like TK Maxx garments. The evening dress was part of a collection. For the first time ever in my entire life, what I dropped in the trolley actually fitted and looked good. Some of it was a tad too young for me, but it appears I can get away with it, still, even at my advanced age in my decrepitude. Tight white jeans? Sure! Why not? From the back they look fantastic. Summer floral frock - a bit too girlie for me - but I can manage it if I fake-tan my legs. 


So. What am I now expected to do with this?


The nice date I mentioned last week turned out to be a very nice date. Let's call him Mike. Lovely. I laid my cards on the table - told him about the Warts, the Rasta pubes, the Chicken pubes, the Whiskers, the Lower Abdominal Disaster, the Saggy Boobs (which perhaps he had clocked anyway - the man's not picky. Thank you, God!), and how often the fire alarm goes off in my house because I AM NOT INTERESTED IN COOKING (have I perhaps mentioned that before? Let me reiterate - I DO NOT WANT TO BE A HOSTESS!)


Erm, what else -  oh yes, the fact that I'm like a self-inflating dinghy - one minute everything around me looks neat and tidy, the next minute me and all my rubbish appear to have filled the room to the cornices. If you're wondering why I feel the need to divulge this minor peccadillo of mine, it's because as far as ex forces people are concerned, their reaction to this news is an extremely accurate measure of the calibre of their interest and devotion. When they've spent 20 odd years cramming their life into a kitbag, the thought of a 5'6'' exploding puffball is enough to give most of them a nervous breakdown and a debilitating outbreak of hives.


I gave him a gazillion chances to wiggle out of that second date, but no - he was having none of it. He's already pulled his profile. Gulp! He thinks I am the bee's knees and the cat's pyjamas. Which, of course, I am. But only to those people who have loved me since childhood and have learned to live with my 'little disgusting endearing ways'. I wish us both luck, but principally him. But you know, looking on the bright side, if he's coped with the horrors of war and chucking himself out of aeroplanes, he'll probably cope with me. Maybe. Perhaps. For a second date at least.


But ha! Meanwhile back at the ranch...What did I do last week thinking that probably (as usual) nothing would come of this? Yes, I booked in a few more, just in case. Because I'm not getting any younger and Stella was right about the bloody moustache - it grows back with a vengeance and spreads. Fortunately, Mike did say that he'd had his eyes lasered 15 years ago, and they now needed some correction. So, phew - a reprieve - safe there for a while, visually if not physically! Hmm... I'll have to remember what 'coy' looks like if, ahem, the need arises before the next threading.


Anyway, now I've got several moral dilemmas. I've always hated choice; it makes me giddy. There are three other gentlemen in my trolley. (Mike wasn't among them - he'd already been hanging in my wardrobe for over two weeks before I met him.) And so far, they are all extremely gorgealicious, in very different ways, and dates were lined up, and actually I'd really like to meet them all, if only because they sound like fab, groovy people. But Mike has pulled his profile - he's a strictly one at a time kind of person. And that is what I am too, really, fundamentally, deep down, at the core, beneath the several layers of wanting to meet the other people anyway...


And morally, it seems to me, I am obliged to go and meet them all - don't you think? To quote Mammy from Gone with the Wind  "It ain't fittin'. It just ain't fittin'" to make and agreement and renege on it.


And here is the bizarre thing that I am almost absolutely positively certain that I'm not sure that I'm wrong about: Mike is seriously solid, safe and capable, one day, of cherishing a misanthropic flake like me.


Oh, sod it. Bugger! Sod it! Poo poo!


PS Something is going horrendously askew here. I thought the purpose of writing this blog was to chronicle the journey of my getting a shag to improve my complexion. What's with all this 'cherishing' nonsense? Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Somebody help me. I need advice or a slap or something. 


PPS And breathe... It's only a second date, you silly bint. Mike'll get instantly disillusioned and the other three won't turn up. Not long till I'm back in the comfort zone then. ;)