The hills have eyes. And so do I (still)!

My mother refuses to play Bridge, or join a Bridge club, or even talk about Bridge, because she is afraid she will then be categorized as 'old'. She gyms lots, plays tennis and does active things. But, on Friday evening, I get a phonecall:

Mother: Darling!
Olive: I've been trying to get hold of you all afternoon! Where have you been?
Mother: Oh I've been having SUCH fun.
Olive: Do elaborate..
Mother: Been with all the girls playing Canasta!
Olive: Sounds like a kitchen utensil.
Mother: It's brilliant! It's this fabulous card game.
Olive. A card game??!!! What happened to you and never being an old woman who plays cards?
Mother: It's nothing like bridge, Darling. It's SO cool. Young people play it too you know.
Olive: Define young.
Mother: You should learn. Or come with us when you're in Joburg next month.
Olive: Ah dash it, I'm all booked up. Do you eat cucumber sandwiches? You do, don't you!!! You GRANDMOTHER!
Mother: ACTUALLY, we eat chocolate brownies. It's very hip.
Olive: You should be careful none of you pop a hip!
Mother: I'm done talking to you now.
Olive: Sorry, Im sure it's cool. Just watch those brownies. Your teeth might fall out.

Mother hung up after that.

So that was on Friday. After which I popped to a dinner at Takumi (see below)...

 (Cue drool)

... then went to Kelvin Grove post-Stormers game for un petit shindig. As per, it was filled with slimy, sweaty men in their 'WP Jou Lekker Ding' tops, reeking of beer, boerewors and bad breath, and the DJ couldn't get enough of 'Kaptein, span die seile'.

By about 1:30 I figured I best get home, especially since the lights had come on and the only 'men' left on the dance floor were old enough to be playing Canasta with my Mother. Now, no matter how utterly paralytic I am, I ALWAYS somehow manage to wash my face, brush my teeth and get into pyjamas. Even if I can't remember doing it. I will have done it. I have a diabolical fear of sleeping with my face caked in makeup. The result would be disturbing to say the least.

So I arrived home and went into the bathroom, simultaneously texting, pulling off my skirt and stuffing my face with a Lindt egg. I grab the blue bottle (which I assumed was eye makeup remover), smothered a cotton pad and lifted it to my eyes. It was about to touch down on my lids when I recognised the pungent smell of Nail Polish remover...

I looked to the shelf.

Omf.

I almost just took off my makeup with NAIL-POLISH REMOVER!

I ALMOST JUST KILLED MYSELF!!!

If I'd realised even a millisecond later I wouldn't have any eyes left to make up! I would've burnt a gaping hole though my eye lids and perished on the bathroom floor, writhing in pain, alone.

SO overwhelming was this thought in my inebriated state that all I could do was get into the empty bath tub and cry at the idea that I had almost singed my eyeballs. I then proceeded to try call everyone in my phone book (it was 2:30am) to tell them about my brush with death. Needless to say no one answered and by morning I had forgotten, and couldn't explain the 12 missed calls on my mother's, best friend's and optometrist's cell phones. It was only yesterday, when I decided to fix up my toenails that the smell of remover elicited the memory.

I cried again.

It was an emotionally taxing weekend.