In 6th postion Competition entry

Here is the story judged 6th in my competition, I did think maybe the author of this piece was talking about me! I think we have all been there and done that, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Fifty Things that make me an Idiot.

In a time of little creative inspiration, I wrote a blog about the 50 things that I do to make me happy. Reading the list back I realised something astounding, something so monumentally ground-breaking and earth moving that I had to have a cup of tea with 2 and a half sugars:

I am a complete idiot.

The list consisted of things that, at the time at least, I thought sounded exceedingly quirky and intellectual. I had visions of my readers sitting at their computers saying things like 'Oooh! Wow, she's a social maverick! Look at her take convention by it's wily horns and shake it about a bit'. I think one of the 50 things went along the lines of: 'On my country walks, I breathe in the air and thank Mother Nature for her awesome awesomness and I take a leaf from a passing tree and present it to someone as a gift laaa dee loo laa laaay.'

I shuddered to read it back, shuddered I say. What a pretentious goon.

Pretty sure it was Aristotle that said wisdom goes hand in hand with knowing yourself; one of the hardest parts of gaining a tiny bit of the wise-stuff is realising that all of your life to date has probably consisted of you behaving like a bit of a twat.

I wonder if Katy Perry or some other teen-boppy person will ever look back, chuckle to themselves over a cup of chamomile tea and say, 'Oop, that hair style was a mistake and lord knows why I thought eating sushi through a straw was cool.  And no, 'Boom' doesn't rhyme with 'Moon', gawfaw.'

I resolved, after this quarter-life realisation, that I will no longer behave thus. However, even this steadfast resolve brings with it a sense of arrogance; who the heck am I to resolve anything? I have a fair few years to go before my clogs pop (I hope) and making a vow-in-stone leaves me far too much scope for making a prize idiot of myself all over again.

If being wise constitutes knowing yourself through the acceptance of your past idiocies, then I can't think of harsher life lessons than a box fringe, leather trousers and teenage poetry.

Next time I think I should write a list of 50 things that make me a Spaceman. It would provide me with just as much entertainment and I'm pretty sure my answers would be more insightful and grounded in something real than the ones I provided for my 'serious' list of 50 something-or-others. 









Congratulations to Sarah Bradley.