It's a good job I'm not overly sensitive. If I was I'd spend most of my days huddled weeping in the corner. You see my 'children' think I'm stupid. No, they've not found my O level certificates (and yes I'm old as well as stupid), but they think I'm an idiot because I get so many things so very wrong.
For example:
I leave my Facebook page logged on and get frequently 'fraped'.
I'm so dozy I only notice when I start getting lots of 'likes' on my new profile picture or status. The newly uploaded photo is usually of a very hairy man-like woman - not me I have an Epilady. Or my status proclaims that I've got divorced and am looking for men (note the plural).
I'm unable to read the bus timetable correctly.
Could I just point out it's not me wanting a bus - it's them and I am trying to be helpful. Logging on to the website and finding the timetable isn't the bit I find challenging, the problem is, the writing is too bloody small and I can never find my glasses. Anyway because I am an obliging sort of idiot I attempt to make out the teensy writing, but I either suggest a weekday bus on a Saturday or the one going in the opposite direction. I think it all goes wrong when I zoom in to read the writing. The essential bit of date and direction vanishes - but my timing is always spot on.
I'm not bright enough to remember where I left my glasses.
I talk to the dog and she talks back to me very nicely.
She thanks me for her kibble and tells me how much she loves me. During these conversations I do the doggy voice as well as my own.
When on a rare occasion someone speaks to me and offers to demonstrate their new Xbox game I can't work out how to use the controller.
The more they yell, PRESS A, PRESS X, PRESS Y, the more I panic and jab randomly at any available button – because I'm stupid.
I bought my middle son pink strawberry shampoo to take back to boarding school.
It was on offer, was I supposed to ignore it and buy the full price version just because it was a more suitable colour? When he said: 'Do you actually want me to get accosted in the showers?' I like to think he was joking.
I never remember their names.
Well obviously I do, it's just putting a name to a face that I struggle with. I usually get there in the end and anyway the dog wags her tail no matter what I call her.
I'm silly enough to get stressy over tiny things.
Such as having to wade through dirty boxers and sodden towels to get to the shower, only to find out there's no hot water as someone has left the tap running.
I buy the wrong sort of sausages because I've forgotten which ones are acceptable and then I lie about it without burning or shredding the evidence.
According to them a sausage is not just a sausage, and if I had any sense I would own up and take it on the chin.
I forget to post the ten millionth parcel of wrong size, wrong colour clothes ordered by a fussy teen - left in a corner under a pile of coats and school bags - and then I don't get my money back. How silly am I?
When we go into that very expensive dark shop that they like to buy their clothes from, I make audible silly jokes about investing in better lighting.
I can't buy the clothes, I can't afford them because they've spent all my money. So not only am I embarrassing, I can also acknowledge that I am stupid.
I don't listen when on rare occasions they talk to me unprompted, so I have to ask them to repeat themselves.
I'm usually so surprised they're bothering to acknowledge me at all that I'm just watching their lips move rather than taking in what they're saying. No one does a withering look better than a teenager.
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