Reality sucks but it can be really funny!

I have to say that since starting to write this blog I have discovered a change in myself. I am more aware of what is happening in my life and how funny life sometimes is. In the midst of pain and suffering the world over there is always something to laugh about... most of the time!

In my family we embrace our faults and quirks. It makes us the people we are! For every quirk that you have you are that little bit more memorable and in a way more appealing to our family. When my brother and my sister and I are together we love to make fun of our parents. I don't know why but they are so very amusing! We tell each other what our Mum has said and we have a voice that we put on which sounds a bit like the Queen of England and in this voice she rolls her "rs". In our impression she says things like "the public house that he frequents" and so on. It makes me laugh every time. Even when we tell each other text messages that she has sent us we use this voice. For our Dad we have an american accent. He is actually from Dublin but spent years in America. So again when we talk about him we say things like "poor guy!" We don't do it for anyone else just our parents or at least not to my knowledge! My brother and sister may have a voice for me but they have never let on! Each of us is ridiculed lovingly for our quirks. Mine is for my moodiness and general bad temperedness. My sister is for her drama and moodiness. Some of the funniest times of my life are my sister as a teenager like when she was dragging her text books down the stairs in a big bin bag after her last exam even before she got the results and saying she would not need these anymore! My brother is just generally hilarious! He is one of those people with a Simpsons sense of humour. He is self critical and is the sort of person that always made you laugh in church. Mum often separated us as I could not contain my laughter when my brother would deliberately clap to songs ultra loudly and out of the beat of the rest of the church.

Even in our toughest times we are always able to find some dark humour in it. I can honestly say that some of the hardest times in my life are sources of great amusement to me. I'll give you an example. About 3 years ago I had a wisdom tooth removed in a rather barbaric way in a small town in Norfolk. It actually involved (I kid you not! Although there is always at least one story like this floating around!) the dentist injecting my gum, pulling on my tooth with my mouth wide open, realising that he didn't have enough leverage to remove it and actually putting his knee on the arm of the dentist chair as he removed my tooth using both hands and a pair of pliers whilst making the grunting noises of a body builder lifting an extra heavy weight. Approximately 4 minutes later I was shoved out the door having paid £120 for this, let's call it "procedure" with wadding covered in blood hanging out of my mouth. Sorry if any of you are squeamish!

By the time I arrived home I could barely stand but had been told by the dentist I would be allowed to go back to work the next day. The next day came and I was starting to resemble a chipmunk storing a winter's full of nuts in his cheek. I didn't go to work... it was not fair on the public! As the days went on my cheek got bigger and bigger until I eventually lost my chin to the swelling. Everyday by way of update and to get lots of sympathy I would send my mother a picture message on my phone with a suitably pained expression on my face (Come on! I'm not pathetic we all do it!) and she would immediately ring me and coo down the phone how much pain I must be in. Not to labour a point here but I was in pain and my mouth tasted like what I imagine a soldier's sock tastes of when he has been in the trenches solidly for 6 days!

After a week of my swollen face increasing in size daily and various trips to the doctor my mum came to stay with me to look after me. The doctor had told me I probably had a "little infection" and not to worry. A few days later I appeared to be slipping in and out of consciousness as my mother spoke to me. She then noticed a line of poison (Not sure if it actually was a line of poison? Is there such a thing?) travelling down from my cheek towards my heart... doesn't this sound dramatic? So my mum insisted we went to the hospital. When we arrived it was a smallish hospital in King's lynn and they told me I had a high temperature but there was nothing they could do for me so they would have to send me to another hospital 50 miles away. So with my elephant man face I got in the ambulance and we were driven to the hospital where I was admitted some 4 hours later.

As I laid in bed after they had informed me I had a massive abscess in my cheek under the stitches. Oh did I not mention that in the four minutes of my procedure the dentist also had time to stitch up my wound? (As an aside point this was not the first time I had been hosptialised with an abscess. I did have one before on my hip from an injection which involved me being in hosptial for three weeks. As if that wasn't bad enough I was put on a bowel ward where people were having their bowels removed. A young, rather good looking trainee doctor was sent to examine me and whilst doing his internal for 5 minutes unquestioned by me- think bowel ward and you'll get the drift- he said he couldn't feel the abscess so he thought it was gone... to which I replied "It's on my hip". He told me, red faced, it was always good to do an internal and that everything was fine down there.) Anyway at the hospital they removed some of the stitches from my gum and the doctor who wrote everything down on what I can only describe as a screwed up cocktail bar's napkin and scrunched it in his pocket, told me I now had septicemia. I finally got to the ward. This was not a particularly vibrant ward as I was the youngest person by about oh I don't know...60 years! Bearing in mind the fact that my aunt told my mum that my university graduation photo looked like a 12 year old graduating I looked even younger with my swollen cheek.

The following day my whole family arrived in force; my mum, sister, brother, brother-in-law and father. I knew by this time I was in serious trouble if they were all here! Nonetheless I enjoyed my sister and brother sitting on the bed making fun of my bulbous cheek. As the evening drew on though I was aware of the fact that I couldn't really follow their conversation and I felt like I was slipping down into the mattress.Not just in a "oh how comfortable way" but as though the mattress was sucking me into it. Weird huh? I was later told by my brother and sister that whilst they carried on chattering my eyes started to roll and they realised I was not at all well and they started to panic. In the only way brothers and sisters can do they reverted to times when we were younger and pretended everything was normal and continued to chatter. This technique was also employed when my brother was babysitting us one night and a man tried to break into our house. We huddled in front of the tv with the sound up trying to ignore what was going on!

As I laid in the hospital bed thinking I was possibly delirious I then remember my father coming to speak to me and sitting with my brother and sister. At this point he decided it was a good idea to ask his ailing lawyer daughter law questions! I know this is totally reasonable! I mean what an opportunity! I could barely focus as I tried to grasp exactly what he was saying. Ever trying to impress I tried to conjure up the thoughts in my brain of legal matters but realised that at that point I wasn't even sure I knew my own name! After trying to put together anything that resembled a sentence I decided on the only strategy I could think of and that was to try to cry... I say "try to" as I didn't even have the energy to do so and so whimpered that I did not think it was really the best time for me to give legal advice.

The next thing I remember in that hospital bed was being violently sick and my sister carrying sick bowls to me on a regular basis whilst my brother put cold towels on my neck and back. Where were the nurses I hear you ask? Oh they were too busy either chatting or having tea breaks or just generally ignoring the annoying young girl who was "pretending" to be sick! So when it was eventually announced that I was going to have to have an emergency operation to have my abscess removed and they might have to cut the side of my cheek to do so, my mum went into terror mode and was begging the doctor (yes the doctor of the crumpled up napkin fame!) not to cut my cheek unless it was the last resort.

Looking back now there are serious low points in my life but puking puss has to be the ultimate of low! However the hilariousness of my family dealing with it the only way they knew how by acting as if nothing was happening always makes me laugh! It always makes me giggle that faced with adversity they respond by laughing and joking. Apparently one of their funniest nights ever was whilst I was in surgery they were down in the lobby having not slept for 24 hours in hysterics as my Dad twirled in front of them remarking how thin he was! Oh how sorry I am I missed that! Typical!

Upon arriving back from surgery and very groggy I was not particularly sure if I was living in reality or not. By the time I was back on the ward and saw my concerned parents leering at me with concerned looks on their faces I decided I was in fact dead! I had to be. I had not seen these two people together since I was a teenager so there was only one answer. I was dead... was it heaven or hell? I wasn't entirely sure but I knew one thing they looked old and concerned and as it was dark in the ward apart from the light from the corridor they had a glow around them. In reality this was the glow from the corridor but in a dazed state I was convinced they were ghosts or angels of something out of this world. I looked up at them and immediately said "So i'm dead then?" In my head I was thinking this is so bloody typical! I'm going to die from having a wisdom tooth removed by a hic dentist! I haven't even had a chance to go to Hawaii(one of my dreams!) or find out what exactly my brother and sister had been laughing and joking about when I was incoherent!I would not be remembered for the face I had but as an overgrown chipmunk with no chin! It was just so unfair.

I was still not convinced that I was alive when my mum told me I was until the nurse came in to me when they left and told me off for worrying my "elderly parents". I remember laughing out loud and thinking to myself "elderly" god they are not even 60! What a joke! And I knew then that I had to be alive because they did seem old and I needed to tell my brother and sister about this! Once the pain kicked in from laughing I was sure... bloody typical I'm not dead, I'm alive and in pain!!!

So dark times in our lives are not necessarily funny. In fact, sometimes, they are quite tragic but we have laughed till we cried during those times. When we are ill something funny seems to just happen to lighten the mood like when my brother took my sister some soup up to her in bed as she was unwell and then because his mouth was watering with hunger dribbled into it as he passed it to her.

Sometimes you feel like you shouldn't be laughing which makes it all the funnier and that's how we get through it! Reality sucks but it can be really funny!

You can't bank on it!

I am not from a wealthy family... rich in love not in monetary terms. I should point out that one of my favourite sayings is "champagne dreams, beer money". I love this phrase because it sums up the kind of family we are. We know what we would like to have if we had the money. When we get a sniff of money, a hint that we are even getting some we have it spent in our heads together with any extra overdraft facility that we may get before we even know the figure. Even then there will not be enough money to fulfill the requirements! Once we receive the money within seconds it is spent, dished out and we are in debit before the day is out. Our debts remain the same and will have been added to and somehow we will have a new credit card that has exceeded the maximum.

Banks hate us... to be fair the feeling is mutual. My brother and I are similar personalities. We get a bit of money and share it normally leaving ourselves short. We both live away from our families so we immediately open our flybe/easyjet accounts and start paying for flights for various loved ones to visit us. We may even just give money to each other to pay for something rash or inappropriate. It is not uncommon for us to have a windfall and buy each other a used car, a couple of flights, a holiday even or even more importantly a new laptop. And this maybe... just may be the reason banks don't like us. We are risky customers.

Sure they like it when the money comes in, encourage us to borrow but yet are fickle and unloyal when we reach problems.

After various money transactions my brother and I spend the rest of our time paying each other back. Transferring money by Western Union normally involving the quick transaction of waiting in a long queue on a lunch time knowing that the other needs the money by 2pm, behind various people who are simply using the Bureau De Change. Then comes the hard bit... where will my brother be able to pick it up or send it from. He lives on the border of Southern and Northern Ireland and so you have to guess where he will be. If you guess the South you can guarantee he will ring you from Belfast and inform you that Western Union have no knowledge of the transaction. A quick 2 hour drive with irritated phone calls to mobiles ensues and he arrives just as the Western Union are either starting their training afternoon or are closing for the day. This means he misses his deadline... or I miss mine.

Regardless of this however banks have no sympathy. Our letters detailing payment plans are notorious. Our countless revised offers of these plans are met with little if no sympathy and charges are accrued by payments turning up just 30 seconds too late before that important cheque goes out.

One time my brother had fallen out with Barclays bank. This was due to charges and various other upsets that the bank did not take responsibility for. In a state of fury as I waited for him outside I could hear his raised voice, could feel the foul temper before he left the building and the words echoing through the halls of the bank and out onto the street "That's it! I'm through with your bank- close all my accounts!" I wanted to Rugby tackle him to the floor and gag him with his beautiful louis vuitton man bag.... bit like a folder with a zip that requires him to carry it under his arm like a woman's clutch bag. Instead I just nodded in agreement as he left the bank and started to walk quickly down the road swearing about the bank. And then I watched it... the realisation... the pure horror as the reality of what he had done hit him. I watched him look down at the cheques (personal ones which would take at least 5 days to clear and unfortunately there was at least one bank holiday and a weekend in between!) that he held crumpled up in his clenched fist.... "Oh great, bloody great! I've got no bank account! No one will even give me one now!".

I stepped in with a solution to solve all our problems. I had a spare account at Natwest which I had had since a child. He could use mine as we had the same initials. No problem! Confidently we deposited the cheques into my account and waited for the 8 days to pass before he had the money.... Disaster was averted. We treated ourselves to lunch. We talked about how I would give him the card for the account etc.

After a month or two I had handed my brother my cheque book which I had signed each cheque of so he could send off the cheques without discussing with me and pay his bills. All sounds like it was working doesn't it? Oh you fools! A day came when my brother asked me to go to the bank and see whether a cheque had been deposited. He gave me the cheque book as he did not have the card on him and I confidently strode up to the counter. The lady asked for the bank account details and without thinking I handed over the cheque book. As she flicked through the pages she noticed I had signed every cheque. She looked at me as though I was the biggest idiot she had ever seen. "What are you thinking? Have you signed every cheque?" As the embarrassment crept up my cheeks I snottily replied, "Yes was I not supposed to? It saves time when I'm writing cheques". After a long lecture about the dangers of this I silently cursed the queue who were scoffing behind me. When she thought I was suitably embarrassed she checked my account and discovered that there were charges and an unagreed overdraft. At least one of the cheques we'd deposited had bounced.

I was immediately glared at and asked to get away from the counter to discuss my account with a manager. After a whispered conversation between the woman and the manager I continued to stand tall and confident while my brother poked his head in the branch and mouthed "Y-o-u o-k?".

The manager took me aside and told me in no uncertain terms that I was not managing my account properly and they were closing my account with immediate effect. I was told to hand over the cheque book and return the card in the next 7 days. As I started to rant and rave of the sheer injustice of this all and even convincing myself that I was in fact a wonderful banking customer I was promptly asked to leave the branch before they called security.

As I arrived outside my brother muttered " They closed your account didn't they?" "Yep 'fraid so!". The reality really started to hit when I realised that previously that week I had kicked up a storm in Barclays about my own account and their inability to transfer my loan payment at the designated time (remember I had already spent this at least a week earlier in my head and now they were delaying it!) and had stormed out in a replica scene of my brother stating that "I want my account closed and I'm writing to the Ombudsman".

As we were left debating what we would without bank accounts my brother suggested Alliance & Leicester. We went in for our joint interview and walked out with new accounts and new credit cards. We even got a free (let's call it plasticy) looking wallet each to put our cards into. A few months later I debated why I couldn't sustain a banking relationship when they refused to change my address and so I was not alerted to being overdrawn by £7 and subsequently incurring £230 in charges before they took away my card and my account. My brother lost his banking facilities a week later with them.

The reality is we do have "champagne dreams and beer money" In fact some would say we have Champagne dreams and Pepsi money. The point is we are great at finding money and spending it....we just don't know why the banks have got it in for us!