I had a dream last night that I was asked to justify my position in the house. Only the house wasn’t the Big Brother house, or even the Playboy Mansion. No, my vivid and over-active imagination (so important in a writer) had recreated, to the minutest detail, my actual, real-life flat.
I was sat, in my actual, real-life living room, in front of my 2 housemates. One of whom had a pad of paper, the other of whom (my little sister) had forgotten to bring one. ‘So,’ My housemate began. ‘Tell us why we should let you stay.’ Luckily, dream-Lucy was eloquent and witty, self-effacing and poignant*. She was allowed to stay.
I woke up this morning still thinking about this. Here are some of the reasons I am the world’s best housemate**
1. I will always tell you that you look fat.
Not just randomly, when you are dashing out of the door for a job interview or something, but if you ask me, I will always answer honestly. I will not say, ‘I don’t love those jeans’, which will leave you confused and belittle my own impeccable fashion sense. I will say, ‘Those jeans make you look fat, which you are not, so please change.’
2. I have perfected the seamless ‘knock and open’ door move, so you will not have to waste any time telling me to ‘come in’.
3. I do not condition or blow-dry my hair, so our water and electricity bills will be nice and low.
4. Often for dinner I simply make a vast cauldron of popcorn.
I am more than happy to make an extra portion for you. (I do not wish to share, so please do not stick your grubby hand into my popcorn).
5. I have hundreds of book recommendations.
If I particularly like a book I have just read, I will deliver it to you in your room. I will then watch you closely until you read it. If you do not seem keen to read it (say, because you are off to work, or in the middle of reading another book), I will helpfully follow you around the flat, reading choice excerpts from the book.
*Look, it was my dream, OK?
**Entirely and fully self-awarded, with absolutely no regard or recourse to fact or the opinions of anyone else.
‘For my popcorn,’ my sister said gleefully. I popped off to the loo, and returned to see my little sister clutching a box of popcorn the size of her face. (She is one of those people with a disarmingly large face). ‘Do you know what screen we’re in?’ I asked her enormous box of popcorn. ‘Hang on,’ she said. ‘Let me check.’ The popcorn wavered alarmingly before being thrust into my hands. ‘Don’t eat any,’ she told me sternly. ‘I’m saving it for the movie.’ We found the screen, and sat down. One of the earliest scenes is of Toni Collette sitting on her sofa, eating a tub of ice-cream the size of my little sister’s face. (Toni Collette has a normal sized face). ‘Aha!’ I said to my sister. ‘It’s all over now, baby blue. Gosh, I am so like Cameron Diaz. It’s ridiculous.’ I began humming Queen’s ‘We are the Champions’ to myself. Unfortunately at this very moment in the movie Toni Collette started singing to herself. My sister rounded back on me, presumably to declare the likeness too uncanny, but failed to account for the enormity of her popcorn, and threw most of the tub over us both. Amidst the whispered admonitions to be quiet, my little sister and I glumly accepted that the competition was still on.
unfashionablylost 