All By Myself, Don’t Wanna Be….

I’m in shock. You know when all you can hear is your own voice in your head going; “OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG…” ? Except you’re repeating the actual words, not just the acronym like some FB/BBM text-speak addled moron LOL who no longer knows the English language WTF, and my mum, who takes all the vowels out of her texts so you need a few spare hours and a seasoned code-breaker to decipher them FFS. (The last letter of that stands for “sake” if you’re of the old-skool literate ilk and familiar with whole words.)

Well, this repetitious refrain is all I have going on in my noodle right now - no thoughts, just a loud, lurching loop. Why? Because I’ve been rendered verbally impotent by a quite unbelievable event and am unable to process how deeply selfish seemingly nice people that you invite into your home and get naked in front of can be.

This sounds like I got done-over whilst hosting a swingers’ evening. I did not. And “done-over” is not the appropriate expression to be used there anyway as presumably a doing-over would be a successful result, whereas I am enjoying no such thing. (The successful result that is, not the swingers’ party. Although I’m not enjoying that either, and if I were I think it would be very rude and show no sense of community to be writing a blog during proceedings.)

Let me be specific. My carer walked out. Just like that. No awkward preamble, no; “it’s not you, it’s me”, no “I’m handing in my month’s notice” as is the custom amongst civilised people in the adult world of work. No, instead, my carer got moody and recalcitrant, and when I asked politely (or not so politely but WTF she was well out of order) if she could lose the attitude, she had a melt-down, packed her bags and left without waiting for my partner to come home. So, to recap, she left me with no warning - or time to organise cover - completely on my Jack Jones, on my tod, solitaire, toute seule, solo, pro bono. OK, not that one, I don’t know what it is in Latin, but you get the idea.

I’m not pushing this point to get sympathy - although I will be going for the sympathy vote in part 2 of this blog so hold that thought. Here, I’m simply looking at the situation as an observer - I’m in shock and emotionally disenfranchised from the event but as a semi-reasonable human being I know it’s not cool to leave someone in my “situation”, unattended. (I’m being vague because using adjectives such as “dependent”, “vulnerable”, or “helpless” makes me want to kill myself.  And as my mum helpfully pointed out when I was feeling sorry for myself recently; “You can’t kill yourself!” Not as in “because the world would stop without you” but matter-of-factly as in “you’re not capable”, to which I retorted; “Yes I can!” Clearly unconvinced, Mum asked; “How?!” I answered; “I could put my head in a plastic bag!” She said; “Well, we’ll have to make sure we don’t leave any plastic bags lying around then won’t we?!” Which despite being a very annoying answer and hardly in the spirit of “equal opportunities” I have to agree is a good rule of thumb vis a vis the environmental impact.)

Getting back to my point of someone with my “delicate constitution” being abandoned by a carer; I would go as far as saying that it’s wrong. Morally.

“Judge not lest ye yourself be judged” Matthew says (7:1) but then he quickly back-peddles with; “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Hysterical, biblical metaphors, hey? Not a “chip” of wood, or a “splinter”, but a whole plank! And the carpentry theme? Surely even JC would be embarrassed by that blatant attempt at point-scoring!) I say, in answer to Matt’s woodwork query; because in order to pay attention to any plank-in- my-eye type situations, I need my carer’s help, and she’s vamoosed. 

I mean, seriously, it would be considered highly irresponsible if we were talking about walking out on a puppy or a child under 12, but at least they could spend a gay afternoon working their way through the liquor cabinet and shredding a few loo rolls. When I’m left unsupervised I have absolutely no chance of upending the Bailey’s or chomping the Andrex as I can’t reach them. 

Hmph. The bottom-line is there are naturally certain expectations one has of a “carer” and the clue’s in the title, in the same way you’d expect an accountant to be able to count and a butcher to be butch, non?

I went to sleep that night with a heavy heart (not to mention the eye), feeling thoroughly disappointed in my species.

The next morning I woke up in my sleepy cul-de-sac to find not just my carer missing but also my car.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Here I am. Alone. Recovering from retinal plank damage.

Yes! Over my wheat grass and pineapple juice, I discover my leafy North London suburb is twinned with South Central L.A, and my Ford Galaxy people-carrier with ramps in the back for the wheelchair, has replaced the Escalade in terms of desirability. Must’ve been one of the Crips, haha. (Do Wiki “Crip” or listen to a Snoop CD if you aren’t familiar with gangster-slang and think I’m making a disablist joke when I’m cleverly tying in my L.A gangs’ metaphor.) 

When I spoke to the PC who took the crime particulars, i.e “the car was outside my door last night, now it’s not”, he informed me that rather than a West Coast gangsta, it may have been a local racket who are stealing cars, manholes and stripping broadband and train cables, for scrap metal, as metal prices have soared because of all the construction in the far-east.

Apparently, drug-addicts in particular are known to steal stuff for scrap-metal. So, someone’s getting high, another Chinese sweat-shop is being built and I’m stuck indoors fighting with the insurance company about “book price” & “actual price” of a second hand Galaxy. It’s win-win-lose. Or win-Wing-lose. That’s not a racist comment right? I love crispy duck.

Silver-lining is that after all this drama, I get to find a new carer. This week’s batch of CVs brings me a Romanian who assures me she is well-qualified for a carer role as she’s “taken care of a dog and 2 cats” not to mention her proficiency in ironing, and a Filipino nurse who lists under Special Skills: “Has the ability to drive defensively”, and “Used assertiveness to find work” which surely translates as she has road rage and she beat someone up to get a job. The fun begins.