How many is too many?

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Somehow, sometime last week, Miss DB, Miss K Kaif and I came upon the topic of how many undies we have in our undie drawer.

I thought I was pretty normal. I don't have that many pairs of undies- maybe 6 or 7 pairs of boring undies that show their face on normal weekdays when nothing special's going on except work. Then I also have nice ones- but not that many. My undies get vigorously rotated and I never run out because they get washed more regularly than I exercise.

Miss DB estimates that she has about 60 pairs. Although, she concedes that there are perhaps only 20 boring pairs that she actually wears regularly.

Miss K Kaif came in as the winner pipping us both with "at least 100 pairs, my undie drawer is overflowing."

I actually gasped and pondered how often you'd need to wash your undies if you had that many. Fortunately, Miss K Kaif read my mind and declared that with her supply, she could possibly go for a very comfortable period of time without doing any undie laundry.

Talk about eye-opener. That's gold!

Does everybody have that many pairs of undies?

In the dead of the night...

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Last night, Man from Mars woke up in the middle of the night needing to take a tinkle. Nothing unusual. If it's not him going, it's me and I don't think we've ever gone a night without the annoying need to tinkle (at approximately 3 am) interrupting our blissful dream world of sleep.

When it's me, I wake up, turn to him and whisper: "Need to pee, do you?" The only reason I do this is because the toilet is really really far down a long long corridor, and when the lights are off, it's kinda spooky. Especially in the dead of the night. I know, I know, I could turn all the lights on, (and when from Man from Mars isn't at my house- I do) but to be honest, if I don't have to, then I won't because whenever I do this, I completely wake myself up and practically never go back to sleep again. Anyway, without fail, Man from Mars will answer in the affirmative and we'll both shuffle down the long long corridor and exchange annoyed/sleepy smiles.

When it's Man from Mars, he leap frogs over me (in a sleep fogged hurdle of arms and legs) and asks "Need to pee?" and I'll without fail answer in the affirmative because if I don't then I might need to go later and turn all the lights on and wake myself up.

Anyway, last night Man from Mars woke up needing to tinkle and turned to me with the usual question which I answered in the usual way. Things weren't urgent for me, but if he was going, I was going too. I went to get up and he was in the process of leap frogging over me when he went:

Ohh no, the electricity's cut off...

And I said:

Why? how do you know? (because he hadn't even turned the light on yet)

And he said:

Because your alarm clock's off

And I went:

Aww man.

And he went:

Do you have a torch?

To which I replied, No, no I did not.

Man from Mars lay there for another ten minutes- waiting for the electricity to come back on because I suppose there's nothing more counterintuitive that peeing into the dark. I kept right on sleeping because my bladder was still in a relatively comfortable state.

He lay and lay and kept checking the alarm clock. No response. Still black.

And then, when his good old bladder was ready to pop, he half leap frogged over me before announcing:

Ohhhh, the cushion on your bureau was blocking the alarm clock

And I went:

What? So there's no black out? Aww man!

Then he laughed, went back to leap frogging, I laughed, went back to accompanying for the hell of it, and we scooted down the long long corridor to the cold porcelain throne.

The guy with the William jersey

There's this guy at my station in the morning who stands with his mum and waits for the train. He has Down Sydrome and he carries his school books in one of those backpacks that have the expandable handle that comes out the top so that he can roll his bag along like a suitcase.

He talks to his mum and she's dressed smartly- a 2 piece suit, tidy short blonde hair and a crisp white shirt.

He's in year 12- which you know because he's wearing the ubiquitous year 12 jersey- blue and white striped, he turns around and you can see what special word he's chosen to put on the back. In my year, most people put their nick names, or something a little more trendy and cryptic like "short black" or "flat white" (references to their height and hair colour/lack of heaving bosom and skin colour).

Instead, he has just put his name: "William".

As the train approaches, William carefully lifts his bag and gets on the train. He moves in a slightly off kilter way and gets the usual stares which generally reflect mild confusion or genuine sympathy. He chooses to stand near the doors and starts talking and motioning to another high school boy who doesn't appear to know him.

He points to this other guy's earphones and then points to his own ears. The other guys shrugs and smiles and offers him an earphone.

William grasps the earphone and puts it in his own ear. He grins and puts his face close to the Ipod screen, reading the name of the song he's listening to.

The other guy says something about needing to get off at the next stop to get to school and William nods and grins. He plucks the earphone out of his ear and tries to carefully slot it back into the other guy's ear. He misses a couple of times, squashing the earphone into the other guy's sideburns.

The other guy laughs and waits until he finally gets it in. William beams.

The other guy waves and saunters off the train.

I watched all this and seriously couldn't stop smiling. It made my morning.

The excruciating train ride...

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This evening, I was one of many unfortunate commuters who didn't read the screen properly when I went to catch the train. Six carriages not eight. Which means: don't stand at the end of the platform because you'll have to run like a fool when the train ends 10 metres away up the platform.

The fool I am, I ran and ran and got onto the train last.

That carriage was packed like sardines, because of the many other fools who also ran and ran and just made it on before me. Ho hum, where do I sit? Will I even be able to sit? I must sit.

So, I muscle my way through and go downstairs.

Some room hog is using his backpack as a quasi-passenger. I stare him down and demand:

Can I sit?

He moves his bag to reveal a space just wide enough for me. It's covered in some unidentifiable brown and white funk. I examine it suspiciously. Has it been stuck to the seat for some time? As in, is it one of those lumpy things which come about when someone has jammed a chewed up piece of gum onto the seat, but the gradual drying effect of dust, air and people sitting on it has meant that it can no longer do any harm? Or is it recently acquired- off the floor of the platform from where this room hog has just come? These things are so hard to determine in the space of 5 seconds. My judgement falters. All I think is:

Do I sit? Should I sit?? I must sit.

I debate whether I should brush the seat off with my hand. But then I think, if I do that, I look like one of those clean freaks who needs everything to be sanitised within an inch of their lives. Admittedly, I am a bit of a germaphobe, but where everyone is vying for that elusive empty seat, I don't think anyonewill appreciate my hesitation.

So I swallow hard and sit down.

The entire train ride I just think: What will my skirt look like when I get up?

I wait and wait. I ponder, I grimace.

Eventually it's my stop and I get up.

I look down back at the seat with bated breath.

No more brown and white funk.

Only clean shiny blue train seat.

The funk wasn't old/permanent/no harm doing funk. But fresh new funk that was now on my skirt.

What a disaster.

I quickly spin my skirt around so that it's on back to front, thunder up the stairs, down the hill and onto the bus before anyone can yelp out: "Oohh she got something on her ar*se!"

May the 4th...

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Today I was walking to the station with Mr Funky Glasses and he goes:

Hey you know how it's May the 4th?

and I went:

Yeah (inside I'm thinking, what's the big deal, it's not like it's the 4th of July)

and he went:

Well it's like "May the 4th be with you"

and then I couldn't stop laughing because hell that was the last thing I was expecting and in all its sillyness it sounded really cool.

Apparently he tried the same line on Mr Smart Abs and he just slammed it down because he took 10 minutes to get it and then said it wasn't all that funny.

Tee hee, I thought it was gold.