I have all the luck, I do

Posted by Katy Regan at 10:08 on 27 Aug 2009

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Talk about One Thing Led to Another. One Thing After Another more like. That really is the story of my life.

Yesterday was the most disastrous day ever - well since last week anyway - so I thought I’d share it with you. (Don’t worry, there’s a good ending to this one.)

Basically, I’d decided, after working all morning, that I would spend the afternoon going to see my friend, Fi, who had a baby girl five weeks ago.

Fi lives in Forest Hill, which is miles away from… well, anywhere really, unless you live in deepest darkest south east London, which I don’t, anymore.

Egg says it was like I was going on some sort of mercy mission, but then he’s a bloke and therefore does not understand that this is what girls do: Your good friend has a baby, you want to go and see it, preferably within the first few weeks.

So anyway, I’d decided to go on public transport. I say ‘decided’, I didn’t have a choice since my car is in the garage at the moment after a truck reversed into it and smashed my front light last week. Like I say, I have all the luck.

I got the train to Euston, bought Sellotape and wrapping paper and flowers for Fi, then went to Oxford Street where I bought her baby a dress from Zara (very cute baby-wear by the way. Baby girls so get the better deal!). I paid for the dress, then got on the tube to London Bridge where I’d then have to get an overland train to Forest Hill.

This was all going very well, although I was already fairly harassed after navigating Oxford Street and Zara with flowers and about four other bags. It was already THREE hours since I set off from home.

Anyway, on the tube, I attempt to get the dress out of my bag together with the wrapping paper and Sellotape I bought at Euston station (I love a bit of wrapping presents on public transport…)

Argh, but where’s the dress? I have left bloody dress in the shop! I have just paid for it and walked off! There is something medically wrong with me!

Cue throwing things frantically out of my bag, a lot of swearing under my breath and then getting off at the next station to go BACK to Zara. However, after more huffing and swearing on the platform, I decide I really can’t be arsed to go back to Zara. I’ll just have to give her the flowers and explain. By this point, I am already an hour and a half late to see her….

I get back on the Jubilee line and get to London Bridge and promptly miss a train because I forgot you can’t use your Oyster card on an overland train and have to buy a separate ticket. I am now starting to get The Rage. I go to buy a ticket, but no! NO! I can’t buy a ticket because I have no purse! Somebody has STOLEN my purse!! Or have I just left it in Zara along with the dress? And my mind.

I’m all sweaty and red-faced now, sitting on the floor in the middle of London Bridge station and throwing everything out of my bag, going, “I can’t believe it! I cannot fucking believe it!” I have given up any kind of ‘under my breath’ nonsense.

There was forty quid in that purse, but more gutting than that, there was a membership card to the British Library (I got it so that I can go and write in their reading rooms) which only the previous day, cost me ten pounds and about an hour of waiting.

A kind woman stops and says, “Are you ok? Do you need some help?” (like a lift back to the nearest mental institution…) I don’t even look at her, I’m so embarrassed and enraged I just shout, “No I do not! I am FINE! I’ve just lost EVERYTHING that’s all!” I feel immediately awful. 

I call my friend and tell her I can’t come. She’s not surprised. (We’ve known each other for seventeen years.)

I get back on the tube again, to Oxford Street and to Zara. By this point, it’s 5pm, four hours after I set off from Berko and I have achieved nothing.

The handsome French sales assistant in the Kids section who served me, raises his palms to the air: “I am so soreeee, Madame, but we do not ‘ave zis purse.” I glare at him like he stole it - I don't mean to - and burst into tears. I wander outside. It’s 5.30pm. The banks are closed. I am stranded in London, with no purse, no money and no way to get home.

I go back to Euston station intending to beg my way on the train – with tears / sexual favours if necessary -  but thankfully learn, that if you report your purse stolen, they give you a crime reference number and then you can get on the train for free. This takes about another hour.

I finally get back to Berko at 6.45pm, feeling, and looking no doubt, like I have been involved in a natural disaster. I get home, promptly neck three quarters of a bottle of wine, try and do some deep breathing, and hack into a chicken.

Hey, but what’s this? A text. A text from Egg! “They’ve got your purse at Marylebone station.”

God knows how they got his number, but who cares! They’ve found my purse (they’ve taken the cash but left all the cards).

I never get luck like this, NEVER. I cannot believe it. So I am off back to London tomorrow to pick it up. Mmm, I might go and see my friend in Forest Hill while I’m at it…

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