I’m feeling a little hemmed in at the mo. Well just so ya know I actually feel as if I’ve been sewn into a large sack full of porridge. The goop of life is mucilaginous and sticky. For example, yesterday I spend 3 hours attempting to register onto a Government website so I could claim my medical expenses on line, after an hour I rang a help line and a very funny woman attempted to talk me down from the ledge. We tried, I tried, we all tried to get me on line. You’d think it wouldn’t be this hard, imagine if I had been Chinese with a smattering of English, and I was confronted with the request for my Medicare number and it was described as the ‘designated user identification account’. It stumped me and the very helpful lady, who shall henceforth be called Deedrie. As it turned out Deedrie had omitted to mention the final digit required as even she didn’t know about it.

Trouble is, once we got the numbers right I had to answer the security questions. I can’t remember yesterday very well, let alone my first pet, my first friend’s name. I had to make up special questions, special people require special questions, so I could access my own details. I created from my past names and objects that have some concrete existence in my memory yet with a little bit of plaque and a neurone adjustment or two those facts may well slide into the porridge that passes for my life at the moment.

Deedrie was a dear, we almost swapped numbers so we could catch up and reminisce about old times. About half way through our tete a tete her phone cut out and I left unregistered and alone. I waited rather than ringing back because I knew I wouldn’t get my Deedrie. Miracle of miracles she called, my joy was immense. But now in the clear light of the next day I realise that she could steal my life, she might be an identity stealer, why else would you endure the babblings of hysterical people who have lost the plot because a government turn of phrase or acronym makes no sense.

That was three hours yesterday, spend making little inroads into the technical reality of my online presence. A redeeming event was a lotto win of $22.60. We porridge dwellers celebrate our small victories.

To continue in this vein yesterday I also had a request from an ex to be discreet. It was like an invitation to invent ways of being indiscreet and possibly, heaven forbid, tactless just so I could work them into a random conversation. Questions and comments like:
“Oh you’re still together!”
“I heard about the nasty bruise.”
“Sam mentioned your difficulties.”
“I feel for you, it must be exhausting.”

I might actually do a discreet cough or discreetly hoike up my southward bound pantihose, as for making an indiscreet comment probably not. I’m actually reasonably noice and wish even random strangers well. I can’t wait to tell Deedrie all about discreetness as I bit back my tactless comments assigning them to the same basket as impulses to stab myself in the foot.