Friday 16 August 2013

You know, when you've been Helga'd

Being a northern lass in London may have an awful lot of perks, namely that it’s socially acceptable to befriend strangers in bars and engage with fellow commuters on the last tube home.

But sometimes this friendliness can lead to an inability to say no, with some horrific results.

If a man speaks to you in the street, he’s invariably destined for a future of institutionalisation. Eye contact should be avoided at all costs. Having made the mistake of ignoring my own advice on one too many occasions, I’ve found myself trapped in hour-long conversations before handing over my personal details and agreeing to drinks, meals, days out, meeting their parents.

The anorexic Bob Geldof, a 22-year-old boy who, unperturbed by the age-gap, repeatedly called me “fruity” spring to mind.

Not to mention Latvian Lance, who insisted on walking me the length of the city:

“What’s your name?”

“Ellie,”

“Oh, I am LANCE!! We have the same name.”

No Lance, we really don’t.

At times of financial strain I also seem to attract every single street fundraiser capital-wide.

Post Japan and job hunting on my first day back in London, I was approached by a gaggle of aptly named charity muggers.

The typical conversation:

“I have no job, and no income,”

“But it’s for charity.......”

At this point the majority of the population would walk away with, at most, an apologetic shrug. But not me, in a whirlwind of uncertainty I found myself signing my non-existent funds away to three charities before the clock had even struck midday. Internet banking is the silver lining in this unfortunate sequence of events.

Answering the door yesterday I was faced with a lovely young girl stealing bank-details for the blind. Despite explaining that I have no income until I start my new role in September, I’m now the proud owner of a badge thanking me for making monthly contributions to such a worthwhile cause.

Trawling around weekend street markets, I deliver my trademark promise;  “I’ll just nip to a cash machine” to the majority of vendors pushing stalls brimming with miscellaneous crap.

However today, the day before the first of our social group ties the knot, was the long overdue reality call that I needed in my quest for assertiveness.

Venturing out for a routine eyebrow thread, I find a place charging a very reasonable £2. It’s cash only so I nip off to a cash machine before returning.

At which point the sales pitch ensues:

“We make eyebrow same as hair colour for £7,”

“Mmm maybe next time, I’ve got a wedding tomorrow,” I reply, dubiously.

“I promise you like. You look nice for wedding.”

I can’t even use the cash machine line as we are both well aware that I’ve just been.

In usual Ellie-style I find my mouth going into autopilot and succumbing before what little surviving grey-matter I still possess can protest.

As she shreds mystery hairs from the crevices of my eyelids she enquires:

“Why your forehead so spotty?” 

Very diplomatic, and just the kind of sales pitch to ensure repeat custom when touting for trade in one of the allegedly ‘most competitive’ areas of the city.

When I eventually blink enough brow remnants from my eyeballs to re-focus, I’m met with a paintbrush-brandishing beautician and pot of very dark paste.

I get the same sense of impending doom as the occasion I asked for a “Rachel cut” at the age of 15 and was subsequently nicknamed: “Wig on a stick” and “Beavis” by my peers.

They were dark times. Yet not as dark as my eyebrows.

“You want see?” she asks – tipping me upright to view her handiwork in the mirror.

I now resemble Hey Arnold’s unrequited love, Helga. It looks like I fell asleep at a house-party and someone took a permanent marker to my forehead.

For those of you unfamiliar with this reference, it's not pretty:

With a brow line that would be laughed out of Liverpool, I was even ashamed to make a planned pit-stop into Lidyl en-route home, instead running for cover as fast as my foal-like pins could trot.

Not wanting to steal the bride’s limelight with my monumental brows, I plan on spending the evening thinking about what I have done in the shower.


With a pan-scrub. 

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