Scale of Agony

Hubs started it. He said, "Have you got everything you need for the wedding next week?"

"Yes," I said, avoiding all eye contact.

"Are you sure?"

I started crying.

Of course I'm not ready. There's a reason why I rode motorbikes for decades and prayed with each pregnancy for a boy child. It's because the feminine gene (along with the smelling gene, the sanity gene and the fashion sense gene) just passed me by completely, took one look at my forming foetus and cried 'Don't bother with that one, lads, we don't have the resources'.

I don't do Dressing Up, as my friends will happily tell you. Scruffy But Comfortable is my middle name (pretty sure the clashing hippy look will come back into fashion at some point).

But this was a wedding. An effort is required. I'd bought a dress, wasn't that enough?

Apparently not.

Hubs bundled me into the car and drove to (aaaaaaaaaaaaargh!) Merry Hell. I had a list: something to put on my feet, something to put on my head, something to put on my pitiful fingernails.

Sigh.

Despite it being his idea in the first place, Hubs obviously wasn't in the mood. We've devised a Scale of Agony when out shopping: one is fine, ten is ready to open up an artery. In the first shop he was already on five.

We joined the crowds of women trailing round rails of clothes being trailed after by bored husbands. Mine was no exception.

"Where you at now?" I kept asking, staring miserably at 145,087 pairs of sandals and not liking any of them.

"Seven," he sighed.

I glanced at window displays as we rushed passed hoping that something would leap out and wave at me, or for a big sign saying "BRUMMIE BROAD, EVERYTHING YOU NEED IN HERE!"

Earrings, check. Fridge magnet, check. DVDs check.

"Where you at?" I asked Hubs after we'd been shop hopping for an hour.

"Nine."

"I've got one more to go."

"No!" he cried, "I can't take it any more, we have to leave NOW."

I didn't argue, I'd been at 10 on the richter scale of horror since before we left the house. Nobody hates shopping more than I do. Nobody.

So if you're in Yorkshire on Thursday morning and you see a scruffy, frantic, red-faced woman running round shops screaming for nail polish and sandals, please stay well out of my way.

Brummie Broad: Here every Tuesday
Brummie Blogs: The rest of the time.