being bad: that bad

Have you ever woken up in the morning and thought. Today I am going to be BAD. That is IT! I am sick of being good. I have had quite enough of that!  I want to be bad.  I am going to be as bad as bad can be. I am going to be the baddest of all the bads.

I want to eat chocolate even though I don’t like it and have cake for breakfast and put brandy in my coffee. I will make lunch without using any kind of recipe, just pull stuff out of the fridge and fry it.  Then  scoff the lot and NOT SHARE!

I will take photos in the rain and not care about drops of water on the lens. In fact I won’t even care about focus or light or composition, I will close my eyes and  just point the camera anywhere and keep pressing the buttons then see what happens. Not bad enough?

I will  tell the next telemarketer that calls that  Mrs G is dead, but yes I AM her. You see I am a ghost, left over from a bloody murder. I will tell her that I am only allowed to answer the phone when nobody is home and I know where she lives and  can I speak to her superviser because I know where she lives too.

I  will go a whole hour without  recycling. I will throw  a can into the trash. How bad is that?

I will give Hairy McLairy a manicure and paint his toe nails bright red. Then I will put a ribbon in his hair. Bad enough?

OK. I am going to just go out there onto the farm and open ALL the internal gates and all the animals can wander freely from paddock to paddock and to hell with intensive grazing and who is getting friendly with who and saving grass for a rainy day. 

Maybe I won’t collect the eggs and I will tell any chickens that want to roost on their eggs, just go for it. Just hatch as many chickens as you like. Just sit there and turn your little belly heaters up and cluck. Just Have At It!

I might drive my mower with the flames painted  on it straight out into the corn that seems will never be harvested. It will stand in my way and rattle its cobs at me but I will mow straight in and make big wide crop circles. Just drive around and around in wild arcs like a clock. In fact I will lie back in the mower  seat and drive with my feet! And when they say who made that mess out there? I will say. Not me. Oh No, I have been sitting in this chair knitting stories all day. And they will say.. You can’t knit.  Poo, I will say back to them.  That bad!

I will  eat all the worst food for dinner. I will  eat fried chicken with my fingers and trifle all on the same plate. Piles of bad for me trifle made with STORE BOUGHT sponge with oodles of sherry and custard out of a packet! Drinking white wine out of a red wine glass.

I will  call all my children,  all over the world and forgedabout the toll bill. And just talk all evening long about NOTHING.

I will take the kitten to the barn and hold it up for Daisy and tell her it is a tomato so she will lick all over and when the kitty looks like he has a Mohawk I shall set him free.

I will make a roaring fire and burn all the good wood with the windows wide open then go out and feed piles of all the best hay to Daisy the Pregnant Cow. Then I will make a barn martini  with the visitors vodka and maybe I will just lie down in the clean  straw when Daisy lies down and just sleep there like a puppy or something. Not even caring about washing the dishes or doing my writing or anything.

Have you ever felt like that being  that bad? Still not bad enough?

I once knew a woman who was a secondary school teacher. This was some time ago. And there was this silly rule that if you wore a dress or skirt you had to wear nylons on your legs. (Pantyhose or stockings). Well it was a really hot summer. And this day was hotter than ever.  She had dressed in  a summer dress and she was just so sick of wearing pantyhose that she just left them draped over the bedroom chair and went to work without them.

She did this for three days running. All free and cool. Summer dresses and bare legs. Her black leather teachers  shoes with the smart little heel  firmly attached to her  bare feet.

On the fourth day the Deputy Principal in his flapping tie with his squeaky trousers and hot pink face came to sit beside her in the staff room.  She was drinking her morning tea. He coughed a little bit, patting his arrow tie into place  and she smiled at him.

Good Morning Mr Brown. She said.

Yes. Um.  Good morning to you Miss Smith.  Now.  You do understand the code of dress for faculty, Miss Smith? He said. Sure that this would be enough said.

Yes. she said, calmly taking a sip of her cooling tea.

Oh. Well.  Then you do know that you are supposed to wear .. um.. er.. nylons? He shuffled turning with intense concentration to the curtains across the room.

I am wearing nylons.  She said calmly, taking another sip of her tea and recrossing her bare legs.

Ah,  no you’re not. He said. Grimly smiling and nodding to a passing staff member.

Yes, I am Mr Brown. She said, leaning in closer and looking him straight in the eye.  You are mistaken. I am wearing pantyhose. Look.

Poor man, he looked at her, he looked at her legs out of the corner of his blushing eye, she sat back all straight and prim. Knowing that the only test would be for him to touch her legs to feel that the nylons were not there. And this would never happen. Never. Never. Because  a Deputy Principal touching a teachers leg would not DO.  There was a pause.

She drank the last of her tea. She uncrossed her legs. Stood. Walked (well sauntered with a wee roll of her slim hips if the truth be known) to the staffroom kitchen. She rinsed her empty cup and placed it to drain on the bench and as the bell rang for the start of class she walked briskly and very professionally back through staff room, right past the defeated gentleman in question. She allowed herself a tiny smile as she left the staffroom.

That BAD.

c