Gotcha!

That was what I said – in my “outside voice” even though I was in on my own – when I finally managed to get hold of an earring that had fallen down the back of my chest of drawers.  That job formed part of a very satisfying 2 hours of tidying this morning.  Having got out of bed and trodden on my toilet bag – still lying full of stuff some 6 days following my return from Edinburgh – I realised that I really had to get myself sorted out.

So, in a major feat of time and motion, I:

• Sorted out my toiletries, makeup bag and piles of hair products (I’ve inherited a lot of this from jazzshark who couldn’t ship it to NY – apparently someone might have thought that the hair straightening serums were potential explosives ingredients …)


• Untangled all my jewellery – necklaces from earrings etc;


• Washed and intensively conditioned my hair - I’m having a curly week this week so have the joy of letting it dry naturally and do its own “big hair” thing rather than spending an hour persuading it that it really does want to be straight;


• Applied my fake tan (I’ve got a cushion on my lap at the moment to stop the shape of my laptop being irrevocably “tanned” into my legs …);


• Finished the ironing and put everything away.  Phew!

The jewellery was a particularly satisfying job.  For months now I’ve had a collection of single earrings cluttering the place up. Not any more – though I have kept one single because I can’t bear for it to really be a single … As a pair they were one of my favourites, a present from Lulu; I know where I lost it so I’m hoping it’ll turn up at some point when someone has their own tidy up!  Consequently I’m hanging onto it in the hope that it’ll become a pair sometime soon.  

There was another single; the mate for whom I was pretty certain was down the back of the chest of drawers.  How to get at it however?  The chest of drawers is very heavy and I tried a half hearted shove but nothing happened.  I then squished my head against the wall and tried to squint to see if I could make anything out – yup, it was definitely there.  A long poky thing, that’s what I needed.  Now the best “tool” for the job would have been a ruler, but I happened to know that the one I wanted was downstairs and I’m afraid I was overcome with laziness and decided that one of my make up brushes would suffice.  Laziness can lead to bonkers assessments of the suitability of tools obviously …  As expected, it wasn’t long enough and the fluffy brush bit wasn’t really designed for grabbing earrings.  Localised rummaging in my drawer unearthed a pair of scissors.  Longer - but still not long enough.  Brainwave! A hanger.  That was long enough but somehow the hook kept getting in the way.  So, laziness was shoved to one side, and I collected the ruler from downstairs.  Gotcha!  Should have just gone down for the flippin’ ruler in the first place, would have saved a lot of time!  It’s like trying to undo screws with the end of a knife because you can’t be arsed to go and get the screwdriver.  You know its going to take you twice as long as doing the job with the right tool, and that you’ll ruin the knife to boot, but you still do it … Or is that just me?

Anyway, all possible pairs were paired and I was left with a pile of 10 single earrings.  The temptation to keep them just because I like them was quite strong, but I then asked myself what possible use would they be?  I’m not quirky enough to go out wearing non-matching earrings, and the only other possible option would be to keep them for a time when I only have one ear. But that’s just daft.  If I ever end up with just one ear, I’ll damn well treat myself to some new single earrings to make myself feel better.  Anyway, they’re now in the WPB, though I have put some other rubbish on top of them, just in case I spot them and am tempted to sneak some of them back for old time’s sake …