The Toilet Roll Archives (18): A Vision'Kerry' Prankster - Lol I Wish.
Oh hello, I’m back to tell you what’s up because I am literally the biggest overgrown child in the world and I can no longer handle my own self-inflicted humiliation. Someone needs to chain my ankle to my bedpost. In case you couldn’t tell by now, I’m probably humanity’s biggest Work In Progress; I am the worst embarrassment in the whole entire world. Lol. It’s pretty much my personal brand at this point – alongside Linda McCartney sausages and falling down the stairs.
I didn’t think it could get much worse at 22 years old but, lol, here we are.
I went up to the Lakes this weekend and it was incredible. There were no people around whatsoever and I don’t think I left the sea for longer than to get a few hours’ sleep. It was beautifully warm (by Cumbrian standards, anyway) and I couldn’t have wished for a better getaway. I’ve been craving some sunshine and greenery for a long time now but, no matter how many times I click on the Ryanair website to book myself a quick weekend trip away, I can’t shake the overwhelming sense of guilt I feel at the thought of leaving the country on the account of my own selfishness and greed when people I know and love are still classed as ‘vulnerable’ and haven’t left the house for months on end. Moral compass aside, I hopped, mask-donned, onto a train and got the sun, the sand and the socially distant company I’d been craving for weeks. It was nice to get away from the muggy air and concrete landscape early Saturday morning, just for a little while.
Our story begins that very Saturday evening. I did a thing. Again. Cry.
It’s always carnage in a supermarket when at least two of my family members go in together because someone always ends up dropping stuff, someone ends up breaking an item that we end up having to purchase or someone always gets lost (Dad is somewhere down the wine aisle comparing price per millilitre). Not to mention we always forget something – sometimes a person, sometimes a purchase. Normally, this takes place in the likes of an Asda or a Sainsbury’s or something. We don’t have foncy supermarkets in Leigh (not since M and S recently opened!) Like, I knew Waitrose existed, but I hadn’t set foot in one until I turned 18 and moved down here for uni. I thought that was as “classy boujee ratchet” as it got when it came to supermarket, but Booths Silverdale is whole other kettle of fish. I’d never even heard of it until one of my friends got a job at the chain recently; there’s one at Salford Quays. And it turned out there was also one up the road from the caravan we were staying in in Silverdale, so of course we were going to go and be nosy (ps not all it’s cracked out to be; money doesn’t always buy quality (if the soft apples were anything to go by! xoxo)
The matriarch herself wanders in, followed by myself, my brother and my sister. Sidenote – you know a supermarket is posh when someone working there hands you a trolley. It’s soon filled with the basic necessities we came in to grab.
We get to the till and, as per, we’ve forgotten something. Mam turns around to me and says “We need to go back and pick up some washing up liquid” – “we,” obviously meaning Kerr‘we’ because phonetics clearly directly correlate to elder sibling responsibilities. In our house, when “we” need to do something, it means Kerr ‘we’ needs to do it – even when I’m not there. Like the family favourite that I try to (but never will) be, I dash back to the aisle to pick some up.
I locate the washing up liquid at the bottom of the shelf and, as I bend down to reach some, I hear a pair of whispering voices bouncing through the gaps of colourful plastic stacked shoulder-to-shoulder on the shelf. One is a very deep voice; the other is pretty high pitched. Both are hurriedly whispering in excited tones, and they suddenly explode into giggles. I hear the word “Kerry.” And I just know, in that moment, that my brother and sister and trying to one up me and scare me as I come round the corner.
‘Lol, not this time, twats. I’ve got one up on you – as per, obvs, but I’ll let you think otherwise!’ I internally think. You might say 'visionary.' I say 'visionKerry.'
So, as any older sibling does in a not-too-busy supermarket that she’ll probably never need to enter into again, I hurtle towards the end of the aisle and jump around the corner. I launch myself at the two figures in the aisle. I shout “Boo!”
The young pair in front of me scream; the guy falls over in surprise. The gal leans back against the freezer in horror.
I don’t have time to laugh at my own quick wit and humour because, as I lock eyes with the girl, my stomach twists into knots and I feel like throwing up. These guys aren’t my siblings. I’ve gone and scared the wrong people. I’ve humiliated myself in front of two perfect strangers. One of them is giving me daggers; the other is slowly standing up after being scared to the floor.
Oh my fucking god, I hate myself. I actually h a t e myself. I cannae believe I’m 22 years old and pull stunts like this and think I’m capable of being a somewhat functioning member of society. Nah not about this one.
The worst part of the whole matter is that I tried to explain myself and convince this couple that I am not actually insane in the membrane (lol cute good effort Kerry xoxo) and that, in fact, I thought they were my siblings. They stared deadpan at me. When I saw their faces after a good 30 seconds of stumbling and rambling excuses, I just ran away because it felt like it was the best thing for me to do. Looking back, probs not. The whole ‘be confident and no one will question you’ motto I swear by simply shattered in that moment because I am clearly. Such. A. Dick. Brb catch me throwing myself into Lake Windemere with Fairy liquid weighing me down because there is no way I can resurface and face the light of day again. I can’t be FUCKING arsed.
I brought the washing up liquid back to the till, tears streaming down my masked face because I’m laughing so hard at my own self-inflicted embarrassment. I can’t get the words out at my quizzingly-staring family. The guy behind the till looks concerned too. I tell my family I’ll meet them outside – mainly because I’m terrified I’ll bump into the couple again.
In the car on the way back to the caravan, I narrate the whole story to them, Dad included. We’re falling apart in tears of laughter (Lily also accidentally clocks me across the face in the midst of her explosive laughter but we won’t go into that because I probs deserved it tbh). I planned to dig a whole on the beach and bury myself in it later that night but I feel like it’s probably a whole lot less deathly to come back to the flat down here (where I’m typing this out right now) and just never let myself outside again.
There’s probs a screenshot of my face on a poster in Booths Silverdale warning people to “Stay Away From This Woman.” No wonder the North doesn’t want me home; I don’t know how I’m still allowed to leave the house. Cry.
So, yeah, this is clearly becoming a bit of A Saga. Getting locked out, scaring random strangers half to death, crashing another family’s Eid. I'm just a walking, talking catastrophe. 2020’s like a crappy game of golf; I’m hitting the ball but I’m losing my club in the process 😊
Oh well livelaughlove and all that shite, I suppose.
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