Im going off piste posting already and posting on random days because random things are happening to me that need to be written. Lets call this one “FFS Friday”

Leaving the Big Apple like a fruit loop

I managed to lock myself out of my friends house for three hours dressed only in my pyjamas. When I say pyjamas what I mean is a vest top t-shirt. It could have been worse…I was supposed to be packing to leave but went outside because I saw an unfamiliar animal in the garden and wanted to investigate. The door locked shut behind me. I hate that animal (which I later found was a groundhog) for distracting me. My friend was at work, an hour away and so I couldn’t call for them to let me back in and had to wait on the porch steps until they came home to a British vagabond making the neighbourhood look untidy. I tried to pick the locks with the only tool I had available which was an iPhone sim card remover. I need to practise the art of lock picking because all I did was get the bloody thing jammed in the lock. Yeah…I know, how to keep friends.

You got a plane to catch or something?

Yes, yes I do.

“Well, we have the wrong middle name on your ticket so you need to sort that out at the ticket desk before you can check in.”

“OH MY DAYS!” At this point, I’m already late due to an hours ride to the airport taking one hour, forty five minutes because traffic in New York DOES NOT MOVE.

The ticket desk people are in ‘mañana’ mode. Eventually we get my name changed. But then…

“Your bag is thirteen pounds over, you wanna take some stuff out?”

“And put it where? No. It needs to stay in and I really need to get going…”

“That’ll be $75.”

“Great.”

I managed to get to my plane as it boarded. Phew.

Those little bastards

Mosquitoes. Last time I was in Texas I got bitten to death. At one point I had 22 bites. I lived on Benadryl, cortisone cream (that never worked until I once mistook it for toothpaste and numbed my mouth) and margaritas to relieve the itching. I’m allergic to bites and they swell up to the size of tennis balls and stay there for months. On the plane to Texas I get bitten by one of these blighters THROUGH MY JEANS. I could feel it pulsating like an alien growth under the denim and couldn’t stop scratching it. This forced me to take medicinal alcohol on the morning plane journey to ease my stress. Having a tipsy, pissed off Brit scratching like a flea ridden monkey sitting near you on a plane unnerves American passengers.

This could be Heaven or this could be Hell

I arrive in Dallas to searing, steamy heat which further aggravates my bite. Fairy Godmother arrives to collect me and takes me to see where JFK got shot, a lovely meal, cocktails and then to our hotel. I’m happy. Things are good. The hotel even bring out cookies and milk for bedtime which I had no problem taking full advantage of. Such a lovely place – (Such a lovely place)

And then, tired out of my little mind , I go to bed after reading two sinister stories to my Fairy Godmother and Godfather from my new book. Hehehehehe… Cue the karma…

My mind is Tiffany twisted

Hotel rooms do my head in. Maybe it’s me. There’s always a ton of switches and lamps and weird curtains that you have to shut in various order with a stupid pole. Like I said, I was super tired so I turned off the lights to jump in my bed and find that it’s still bright. Hmm. There’s some sort of strip light going across the top of the bed headboards causing an illumination that is not conducive to sleep. Can I find the switch to kill it? No. No I sodding well can’t. I press everything. I get out of bed and press more buttons and the only one’s working are mine. I manage to have lamps going on and off in all corners of the room. I made the telly come on, the radio, the microwave. Yep. I even had the pre-set ‘how very dare you change it’, air con abiding to my rules but turning off this strip light? Not a chance. Infuriated and tired to the point of hysteria I stood on the beds and tried to follow it along the wall. See if I can’t yank it out or something. Nope. Hours it took me, hours to locate a stupid little button the size of a Tic-Tac that shut it off.

I woke up the this morning at stupid “o’ clock. The rains were coming down like the end of the world outside which made me think of having a shower. Another thing I have a problem with in hotel rooms are showers. It takes me ages to figure out how it works. I’m pulling, pushing and twisting and nothing happens. Suddenly the thing sprung into life and water belted out. Eventually. Half way through me sudding up, the water suddenly becomes boiling hot and I mean scalding, causing me to scream as it makes to take the skin off my feet. I nearly break my neck trying to escape the porcelain which isn’t half as shiny as the third degree burns on my shins. Once out, I put my arm in to try and stop the shower, but oh no, this thing has gone into full pelt, hot tar mode. Now I have a burnt forearm. Despite my dippy behaviour I actually have the foresight to change from shower mode to bath tap and the steaming hot water starts to fill the tub at lightning speed. I can barely see due to the insane amount of steam and wonder if I’m being boiled alive by an evil hotel spirit. I can’t turn the water off; the tap is stuck. I had no choice but to wake my Fairy Godmother at dawn.

“Knock -Knock. Help! I’m being burnt alive and the shower won’t turn off. Flood any second!”

In she comes, panicked and tired but ready to save me and also cannot turn the tap off or see because of the steam. But Fairy Godmother is an American and knows how to deal with these things. She gets on the phone and tells the hotel how their equipment has burned an English princess and that they need to get maintenance upstairs pronto before the bath overflows. Seconds later a burly man arrives and turns it off.

Forget the pink Champagne on ice – I need coffee

I go downstairs for coffee. Full, red hot, caffeine. I go with my Godfather to sit on a big comfy chair in the lobby to drink it. I fall into the big, comfy armchair which, unbeknown to me, spins round 180 degrees and I spill scalding hot drink all over my legs. Cos that’s just what I needed to happen all over my third degree burns.

Baconless breakfast?

My Godfather takes me to breakfast to make me feel better. I get there to find there’s no bacon. WHAT THE HELL? How can there be no bacon? This is America. This is why I come here.

“There’s no flippin bacon!” I cry.

The hotel is full of Marines who are so very polite it is insane.

“Hey, try this biscuit and gravy, it’s an American delicacy,” says one of them as he hands it over.

“I. WANT. BACON.”

Afraid of a lawsuit, the kitchen went and cooked me up a whole plate of bacon (which didn’t look too dissimilar to my shins) and brought it out for me. The other guests looked on covetously. But if only they knew what I’d been through to get it.

I’ve just left and arrived in Fort Worth which is like cowboy heaven and am pretty sure this place will suit Calamity Jules(AKA Texas Redneckshins)much better.