Well, when my scalp masseuse said "If one more person says to me 'Left a bit... down a bit... down a bit... there's an itchy crusty bit that's driving me mad,'" I just could have died. It was sooo embarrassing, because only about five minutes earlier I nearly said the exact same thing, only stopping myself because I knew to speak would spoil the mood, and that she'd get to it eventually, being the professional that she is. It was so sobering too, and I just snapped back to me. I had to get out of there: she was almost right at the crunchy bit and I knew she'd just lock up the second she touched it; there'd be this tension between us. I did what any self-respecting person would do in my shoes, mumbling non-existent words, making sure two of them sounded like time and sorry, stretched my neck from side to side and escaped.
No sooner did I step on to the sleep than I bumped into Mindy and her bags. We exchanged pleasantries, then polite comments that we hadn't seen each other in ages and really should catch up with each other; neither of us read the other's hesitancy wisely, each expecting the other to be the one who actually said no, and we took a light lunch together in the Hill on the Green. The conversation preluded with dog related insights, but then she came round to ask me where I'd been just so she could tell me she was there on Tuesday, and that Katy had been just wonderful with her itchy, crunchy bit. Well, you know Mindy: she won't let you share or compete with her experiences, so I let her usurp to her artificial little heart's content as I surreptitiously scratched my scalp. What can you do when Mindy starts talking but sip at your Yeltsin Potatoes and Something Red, whilst poking at the under-oiled cucumber in your salad du jour?
You hit a point during time with Mindy when you start playing games with what she's saying, don't you? It becomes the only thing that gets you through, but today I was still so preventatively embarrassed... no that's not what I mean - oh you know what I mean... - ... embarrassed from the Katy crust thing that I couldn't do anything but count how long she talked about her uninteresting self. These people who kill themselves, I can understand them, I really can.
She had to go. She said it was something she had to do with an old something and she was really very sorry, though she had a look about her as if the fish wasn't sitting quite right in her, and it was coming out soon, preferably in the relative privacy of her own home. Out I am again, riddled with just everything about Katy, knocked senseless by a meal with Mindy, but enjoying the sight of her sedately pelting off to go through all sorts of draining pain. This scruffy... thing accosted me, drunk no doubt, telling me "Don't make the same mistake I did: the answer to question forty seven is D, not C." Well, I told him I picked B. "Therein lies itchiness and crunchiness. Don't make the same mistake I did: the answer to question forty seven is D, not C." Naturally I had him arrested for knowing too much about my scalp, and told the nice policeman that I was sure I'd seen lots of cuts and bruises all over the man if they wanted to drop him down the stairs, or whatever it is they do.
By this time I was all of a tizz, not knowing whether I was itching or crunching, and certain that I would tell Louisa all the wrong things to do when I got home. I decided to switch off from the inequity of modern life, so I jumped in a taxi - literally jumped - and was just asking the nice little man to drive around a bit before taking me home, when I looked across and Mindy was already in the cab. I was no better than these carjackers you read about on the news. Embarrassed? Embarrassed?! It was just one thing after another. I jumped out just as I'd jumped in, slamming the door behind me. The taxi sped away, pulling me over from my trapped hair - now completely ruined. I was sure I'd broken my elbow, but a passing orthopaedic surgeon who helped me to my feet convinced me otherwise. As I patted my hair back into place, desperate to hide the fact that I'd fled my scalp masseuse, had lunch with Mindy, spoken to someone who positively reeked, nearly been arrested for stealing a taxi, and then brought crashing to the floor by the same taxi, I couldn't feel my crunchy bit.
For the first time that week I smiled, I actually smiled. Mindy sitting in a cab with my itchy crunchy bit stuck in the door, no doubt leaving its pus and blood (which, incidentally, were dripping down my neck and just ruining my dress) all over the window, just filled me with such inordinate glee that my make up cracked. I must have looked a sight, but I didn't care; life was wonderful. I thought to myself "If I get pregnant now I'm calling my daughter Elation." I scurried back to Katy to see if she could fit me in and finish me off.