Wicked

I knew I had a bad streak in me from quite an early age.  I was about five years old when I watched a little girl on her shiny new tricycle (it even had a locker on the back) ride head first into a ditch full of nettles. I remember my mother scolding me after I clapped my hands with glee.  This unfortunate reaction to other people's misfortune is a recurring theme in my life. An overweight nurse colleague sitting down heavily in the staffroom causing the chair to completely disintegrate had me in hysterics.  On holiday in Egypt an extended family had set up their loungers right on the water’s edge.  I chortled merrily when the grandmother sat down on the wrong end of a sun lounger and tipped backwards head first into the sea. 

Of course karma gets its own back on me.  I remember an illicit date at a posh hotel when the heel on my shoe broke half way down a sweeping staircase and I slithered down the other half of the stairs finally coming to rest like a broken giraffe in front of all the other guests.  Another time my feet flew out from underneath me as I was running down the steps of my villa to put towels on the sun loungers before the Germans arrived.  That was a very painful fall.  And recently I was struggling along a beach in Australia, beach bag in one hand, parasol in the other.  The wind suddenly blew my hat off so I turned to race after it but my feet couldn’t keep up with the rest of me and I did a face plant into the sand.  That time it was only my pride that was hurt.

Apart from this aberration I am quite a nice person.  Really I am.