Wednesday 30 March 2016

Cock-ups, anecdotes and some key life advice


There's always been a fairly simple recipe for viral success, with cute dogs, moral outrage and toilet humour being some of the key ingredients, and a story that's been doing the rounds this week has proven that the latter is still winning material if you fancy being featured on Buzzfeed. If you frequent either Facebook or Twitter, you'll probably already know the story I'm thinking of here, but for those of you who somehow managed to escape its clickbait lure, allow me to provide you with the edited highlights. Last week, a woman (who goes by the name 'Misunderstood Worm') did the 21st century equivalent of gathering listeners by the campfire and settled down to write a series of tweets. 'I have a story to tell', she began, 'about my poop'. At this, of course, the Internet sat up and listened.

According to Ms Worm, she went on a date recently and on returning to the date's place, being a 'confident, calm and self assured woman', decided she felt comfortable enough to poo in his bathroom. To her dismay, however, the toilet turned out to be broken, and after 'flushing a million times', only succeeded in making 'everything worse.' At this point, the aforementioned calmness clearly deserted her, because after her attempts to flush it away continued in vain, she made a decision. 'I did the only thing I could think to do. I wrapped it in multiple layers of toilet paper and put it in my purse.' Leaving the bathroom, poo in purse, her date was clearly blissfully unaware of the situation, telling her, 'You're so beautiful. The moment you smiled at me, you had me', while she, of course, was all: 'Me: that's really sweet. Me in my head: I have a piece of my poo in my purse.'

The cynical side of me wonders if this story was more the result of an extreme commitment to retweets, as opposed to the truth. But there's another part of me that sees it as yet another confirmation of one of life's most important lessons. It's a lesson that I remember Caitlin Moran setting out in her Times column a while ago, although thankfully in a distinctly less nauseating manner. In the column, she wrote an imaginary posthumous letter to her daughter, containing all the things she'd want her to know if she were to meet an untimely death. It's full of nuggets we could all do with remembering: 'Think of yourself as a silver rocket – use loud music as your fuel; books like maps and co-ordinates for how to get there. Host extravagantly, love constantly, dance in comfortable shoes', and something I've found to be true on many an occasion: 'Always remember that, nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit.'

But the most amazing piece of life advice it contained – one that Misunderstood Worm clearly recognised, and which I forever try to keep in mind, was this: 'Life divides into AMAZING ENJOYABLE TIMES and APPALLING EXPERIENCES THAT WILL MAKE FUTURE AMAZING ANECDOTES. However awful, you can get through any experience if you imagine yourself, in the future, telling your friends about it as they scream, with increasing disbelief, "NO! NO!" Even when Jesus was on the cross, I bet He was thinking, "When I rise in three days, the disciples aren’t going to believe this when I tell them about it."'

This weekend, I boarded a train from London to Bristol for a reunion with some old uni pals. Despite being hungover and tired as hell, I was excited for a number of reasons: I haven't seen these friends in a while, Bristol is a very nice part of the world, and I also happen to love long train journeys. As I sat there staring out of the window, cranes and concrete long ago replaced by the rolling hills of the countryside (which I always like to imagine being smoothed out that way, like buttercream icing on a cake), it occurred to me that the Facebook group in which the organising of this weekend had been happening had been oddly quiet, considering we were all meeting up that day. So I sent through my ETA, expecting an update on everyone's whereabouts. Instead, one of a rather different nature came back. The gist of which was this: 'Oh my god. Sian. Are you on the train now?? Everyone's coming next week!!!' Worse, the hosts weren't even IN Bristol this weekend.

As the train rolled past the yellow brick buildings of Bath and further into the south west, my stomach sank and my initial thoughts were exactly as you'd expect. Mainly: YOU BLOODY FUCKING IDIOT HOW HAVE YOU MANAGED THIS COMPLETE AND UTTER COCK-UP. And yet. As my friends offered up sympathies and suggestions for the solo sightseeing tour I was inevitably going to have to take up (in between calling me a tit, deservedly so), I remembered Caitlin Moran's advice, and had to laugh. This was a complete ball ache of a situation, but I still had the chance to do my very best to turn it into one of those 'amazing anecdotes' she mentioned.

Now for those of you who were anywhere in Britain this Saturday, you'll know I had my work cut out for me. The bank holiday gods were most certainly not on our side, and it pissed it down pretty much all day. So as I trudged down the slope from Bristol Temple Meads towards the city centre, the blustery wind destroying my umbrella within minutes, the outlook for my solo adventure was not exactly looking very Eat Pray Love. If this HAD been a film, I'd surely be about to tell you that my day involved being swept off my feet by a tall dark handsome stranger, but Julia Roberts I am not, and the closest I got to romance all day was a creepy old man wolf whistling directly into my face in the pouring rain (and considering the drowned rat look I was sporting, I can only assume he was unhinged).

However. Luckily, I enjoy my own company, and I decided to embrace all the delights Bristol (damp or not) had to offer. So, feeling very Bill Bryson, I embarked upon a solo expedition. I walked all around the city, visiting the cathedral and the Bristol art gallery. I had the lunch of a champion at Boston Tea Party (and can highly recommend their eggy bread with bacon, tomatoes and avocado); I browsed their charity shops and vintage shops, and left them laden with books and records and a fetching skirt; I looked around the Georgian Museum, a town house that's been completely preserved in its 18th century splendour; I did a tour of the town centre, which has pretty much every shop you could ever ask for, and to top it all off, I went to Harvey Nicks, where I ogled Tom Ford makeup and treated myself to a cream tea, before journeying a day early back to the Big Smoke.

Like I said, not exactly blockbuster material. But, just like the time I puked into my handbag on a busy overground, or accidentally stayed in an Airbnb that was essentially a squat in Berlin, or enjoyed a drunken bath with my uni housemate before she promptly vomited in it (I managed to leap out in time, THANK GOD), or got placed as a fresher in halls with a guy who turned out to be a convicted paedophile (long story, I'll save that for another time), and the countless other times either I or someone else has made a spectacular cock-up, I have, at least, been provided with another pretty great anecdote.

So, whether you find yourself on the Tinder date from hell, with an unflushable toilet, stranded in a strange city or experiencing any other comparable nightmare, remember, there could be an excellent story in it, and, if you're VERY lucky like me, possibly even a ridiculous Rod Stewart record...