Death of a car salesman

There are lots of people out there who can get very excited about buying a new car. I am not one of them. Despite my disinterest, this week I had to trade my car in and buy a new one. This nearly resulted in my being sent to jail for murder most foul.

The person I normally get my cars from has nothing at the moment that fits my particular requirements. As I needed to get this whole thing done and dealt with as quickly as possible, I widened the search and found the perfect charabang online. The whole thing went downhill from here.

This gets me to the real reason for this blog entry. It is not to bore you with the details of me trying to buy a car but for me to vent my rage at the intolerable, endless and appalling sexism and general uselessness of car salesmen.

Let's make something clear. I am not a bra burning feminist. I like my bras for one thing, and I have no objection to having a door opened for me. I don't think that's sexism, I think it is gallantry. However this particular experience was filled to the brim with old fashioned, patronising and excruciating sexism from an older man towards 'the little woman'.

The prat that I dealt with was consistently patronising, and at the same time shockingly stupid. He had obviously decided that as a girl buying a car, I could not possibly understand what I was doing, despite me explaining that this was the third car I had traded in in as many years. He ignored this fact and instead spent his time explaining things in a deliberately slow voice as though he were dealing with a lunatic. Things that I already understood and didn't need explaining to me.

At the same time he wouldn't actually answer my questions because 'you don't really need to know that dear'. All this while he constantly called me by the wrong name, didn't listen to me when I explained what I wanted and told me to 'calm down dear' when I exploded with rage as he ignored me for the umpteenth time.

I longed to just walk away from the sale rather than deal with him but I didn't have the time. So I bottled my ire and headed to Lincoln to fetch the wretched thing. It turns out that the prat had no idea where he actually worked. He had insisted that it would take me no more than 2 hours to get from central london to Lincoln. Try 3 1/4 hours. He then gave me such terrible directions to the showroom that it took an extra half hour to backtrack and find him. I am good at directions - my job entails me finding new places three or four times a week and I get lost about twice a year. Even the other people in the showroom looked baffled when I showed them the directions I was given. He didn't even apologise. He just mentally patted me on the head and said 'well you got here didn't you dear'. How did I not stab him there and then with my car keys?

Where do they get these people from? How are they still alive, let alone employed? This man was a dinosaur and needed to be made extinct. I longed for a comet to land on him and leave nothing but a charred pair of shoes and a smoking crater. I mentally put my hands round his scrawny neck and choked him to death, laughing maniacally, then put him through a potato chipper and burnt the remains before driving over them in my newish car. The whole experience was hideous because of him. I am getting cross just typing about him. AAAAAAAARRGGHHHH

I am glad to say that it is rare to come across this sort of attitude, but invariably when you do it is in a car salesmen. Do the dealers go out looking for sexist, stupid idiots to patronise us? Do they think to themselves 'hmm, next to a house, this is the biggest purchase most people will make so let's make it as hellish and insulting as possible?' If that was their plan then they succeeded. And as for me? I am going to drive this car for the rest of my life so that I NEVER have to deal with a used car salesman again. Ever.

Tragic, cruel world. It really isn't fair.

On Thursday night last week my Godson was born; Sam. In the early hours of Tuesday morning he died. His mother fed him at midnight then got up again at three to feed him again and he was no more.

It isn't fair.

I don't know how to process information like this. It's not fair. It's cruel. It's inexplicable.

Cos your feets too big...

There's a fabulous song by Fats Waller called 'Cos your feets too big'. When we were little we used to run around the lawn screaming the words out and laughing hysterically. Little did I know how prophetic this would be.

You see, I'm tall. Just under six foot and I have correspondingly large feet. Size 9 to be exact. This is useful if you want to go water skiing and don't have any skis but downright hideous if you worship at the altar of beautiful shoes, or for that matter just want everyday shoes.

I could take vanity out of the issue and persuade myself that shoes are just for protecting your feet and stopping you getting cold toes but I am fooling myself. Shoes say something about you. About the woman you want to be, the mood you are in. Killer heels for vamp days, pretty strappy things for days when you want to pretend you are a feminine and enchanting mille feuille of a girl. Knee high boots for Saturdays spent strolling through Borough Market, ballet slippers for supper with friends. The list goes on.

Fairytales are filled with women whose feet predetermine their destiny. There is the Devil wears Prada, when Anne Hathaway's transformation from student shabbiness to New York uber cool is marked by the day she is given new and ravishing designer shoes. Cinderella's life revolves around her tiny feet with their double glazed slippers, The Little Mermaid's story revolves around her tiny white feet being stabbed by red hot knives in order to get the Prince (no happiness without pain in the feet seems to be the moral). I could go on.

It seems that my feet are never going to lead me down the fairytale ending. Quite aside from the fact that the killer heels add so much to my height that I have to have an oxygen tank to cope with the thin air, they make me far too tall for men to want to talk to me and too tall to hear what my more vertically challenged friends are saying. It's irrelevant anyway because the shoe shops just won't stock shoes in my size.

Somebody out there has decided that girls with big feet don't deserve pretty shoes, or necessarily want them. Apparently we are so ashamed of our monstrously sized feet that we wish to hide them in remedial style shoes in various shades of dog pooh.

I walk past shoe shops and peer through the windows like The Little Matchgirl, gazing at what I can never have. Occasionally I brave the doors and go in and ask longingly what size the shoes go up to. Invariably the assistant says 'size 8' and when I say that won't do as I am a size 9 they look faintly horrified at the thought of feet that big and their sigh of relief as I leave their emporium of beauty sends me on my way. Often I boil with rage when they crush my hopes. Why is this avenue of loveliness shut to me? 'It's not fair' I sob in my head.

Now that shoes have become so affordable everyone seems to have the loveliest of shoes. I find that I buy shoes just because they fit me, even if I hate them. Anything to fulfill the craving for shoes. If I were a millionaire I would have shoes made for me. Sparkly shoes, strappy shoes, shoes in every colour (Ok, not yellow or peach but every other colour). It would be heaven.

I know that there are websites out there now that do shoes for bigger feet but the choice is limited and often the only lovely ones are too narrow and often the more mundane shoes are only just a size 9, making them wildly uncomfortable. I once found the most beautiful pair of shoes and ordered them. They arrived and were a thing of such beauty that I scarcely dared lift them from their nest of crisp tissue paper. It was a soul destroying moment when I tried to put them on and discovered that they were never ever going to fit. They were sent back in a tear stained box.

The reason for this blog is that the dull, dull, dull pair of brown shoes that I wear everyday are wearing out and I must face the prospect of a search for a replacement pair of everyday shoes. I am off to London tomorrow, the mecca of footwear. The only thing I can guarantee is that I will want to cry during the search and will end up buying ugly shoes just because they fit. It's cos my feets too big.

Mad woman needs help.

So, in the wonderful world of the blogging stratosphere I have come across the lovely, funny and energetic Home Office Mum. With two sons, a business she runs from home and a husband you'd think she'd be resigned to life as she knew it and would be happy to only dream of all the things outside her ken that the world would say she now could not have.

But, dear readers, life is not like that. About three weeks ago she blogged about an advert that she had seen to do one of the round the world clipper ship races. She mused on the fact that she'd like to do it, and then she applied AND GOT A PLACE!

Suddenly she has been launched into the choppy waters of managing a business, a family and the race to raise £8000 sponsorship and then flee her life for a few weeks to live life on the high seas. She has set up a new blog for the rest of us to follow her in awe as she sets out on this epic journey from normalcy - More to Life than Laundry. I hope you will go and visit her there, and if you can spare some loose change, sponser her via paypal.

It seems to me that we all spend our lives dreaming of 'what if' and very rarely dare to try it so those of us who do take the plunge deserve loud cheers, cash or at least a supportive comment.

Just how necessary is 'the spark' with a cyberman?

So, I have a question for all you halves of couples out there. How important is the SPARK? Did you meet your loved ones and 'just knew'. Did your pulse race? Your heart accelerate and your palms go sweaty? Was your first thought "how quickly can I jump this man / woman's bones?".

You see I am an innocent abroad in these matters. I know, I'm 35 and should be jaded, worldly and wise but I'm not. I've only gone out with one person and that was years ago and I'm not quite sure how it happened. I know that it ended because he sent me flowers (contrary I know, and obviously glib too but that was the genuine catalyst). So, it's been over a decade since that momentous event and I have been skipping along through life, single, footloose and literally fancy free.

On Saturday I met with pilot man, after months of delicate UN style negotiations and failed treaties. The spot was Ludlow, half way between our respective homes. I was nervous the night before and scarcely slept. Would this be the love of my life? Was Friday the last night of life as I knew it? Was I going to be initiated into the world of those who had 'another half?'. Consequently I woke on Saturday morning with a cracking headache. Not the best start.

The day was thick with low cloud and I only knew I'd reached Ludlow because the sign said I had; you could scarcely see the town for cloud. I was early and managed to find parking at completely the opposite end of town to the pub we were to meet at. Pilot man sent me a text to say that the road he was coming in on was closed so he would be late so I wandered through the town, past the busy shoppers and after getting directions headed down the hill to the pub. It was the pub you always imagine you'd like to have down the road. Low beamed, with wide, scarred oak floor boards and a roaring fire. A whippet puppy was busy destroying half the newspapers and locals would drop in every now and then to tease the barmaid and catch up with friends nursing a pint. I settled myself at a table with a slant that would be defined as a black run were it a ski slope and rescued some of the paper from the puppy.

Ten minutes later Pilot man rang to say that he had parked and was on his way. I watched the door anxiously. Was this it? The door swung open and a man came in. Like every date I have met off the web, he was sort of like his photo, but not completely but I did at least recognise him. I'm not sure he recognised me mind you but I called out to him before he could look around and decide that I wasn't there and run away.

He's nice looking. Wearing jeans and a black polo neck he looked as though he had made an effort which is flattering. Also, there was no cravat and that is always good news. His hair, which is a dark brown grows in a widows peak above a friendly used sort of face. He comes over and joins me at the table. We kiss hello (on the cheek). After a brief 'how was your journey' kind of conversation he looks a little embarrassed and says he has no English money to buy a drink. I finger the stack of cocktail sticks in my pocket and wonder if I will be needing them. But after Wednesday's debacle I am now prepared for the drinks thing so offer to get him a pint. He has a good excuse. He only landed back in the UK at midnight on Friday and had not had time to change his stack of foreigh currency back into sterling. He immediately says that he will buy lunch in return. This seems fair, and generous. I put the cocktail sticks down.

We sat and chatted easily for a couple of hours. Conversation ranged from the forthcoming Rugby to Philosophy, via the state of the economy, the joys and woes of snow and various other topics. We touched on the thorny issue of valentine's day and he had strong feelings on this. They were that men who had to make an effort on valentine's day quite obviously did not make enough effort the rest of the time. I pretty much agree with him on this point and am glad that I took my kind readers sage counsel and arrived bearing no gifts of any kind.

Two hours later, lunch over, our respective parking was running out. At this point, I was wondering in the back of my mind what next? He's nice, he's easy to talk to. We chortled over similar things and were happy to disagree on others. There was nothing wrong at all. But shouldn't my heart be racing? my stomach churning with lust? Or is 35 too old for such things? Does lust come slowly, or not at all and I should just be looking for company, with wild passionate sex discarded as a 'service' station that I have shot past and can't get back to?

He's paid the bill and I am wondering whether I should suggest a walk around the town? But why should I suggest it? Why hasn't he? It could be that he doesn't want to be pushy, or that he can't wait to get away? I want him to take the decision but none is forthcoming. I weakly suggest that I should get back to my car and he offers to drive me through the town to save me the walk.

A few minutes later we pull up by my car. Pilot Man says that he has enjoyed meeting me and that it would be nice to 'do this again'. I agree and we work out that he will be based at Manchester airport in a fortnight so we could meet up again then. We kiss on the cheek again and I get out of the car and he drives off.

I'm left confused and slightly indifferent. We had a nice time, he was charming and kind and the time passed easily but he could have been a long lost cousin, not a date. Does that mean that we are on a road to indifference, or just that it is too soon to tell? This is all horribly new to me and I don't know the rules.

So. I've established that he isn't horrible, he doesn't have a flat cap or an autocratic mother. I've also established that my stomach doesn't churn at the sight of him and the prospect of seeing him again is neither dreadful nor thrilling.

I return home muddled and confused and needing your advice. How important is the spark?