Stupid is as stupid does

I did something really stupid last Friday afternoon. "Again??" you might decry if you're my mother. I'd love to be able to reply "I don't know what you mean" without the slightest hint of sheepish admission. Unfortunately that won't be possible. Whilst I see myself as a reasonably organised, sensible and careful individual, I'm never far from calamity. History keeps repeating itself on a fairly regular basis. Broken record I am. (That's a vinyl record for you kids out there, played on a record player with a tone arm that can get stuck in the middle of a tune if the vinyl disc is scratched. None of this digital download or streaming lark.)

My latest act of folly occurred as I was about to leave work. I'd been given a stash of post to drop in the downstairs post bag on my way out. The pile had been added to incrementally in a short space of time. As I was gathering my belongings, and the outgoing correspondence, I was handed a parcel by a colleague. I registered that it was a bag from Schuh which clearly contained a box of footwear and assumed that my colleague was returning a pair of unwanted shoes. Mail and parcel duly despatched in the post sack, onwards to Brewdog for food and ridiculously branded lager. The next day I received an email from Schuh informing me that my recent order had been delivered and thanking me for the custom. I was halfway through an internal "But I didn't get the delivery!" when it dawned on me what I'd done. So instead of a pair of amazingly bargainous Adidas ZX500 trainers taking pride of place on my shoe rack, a pair of amazingly bargainous Adidas ZX500 trainers have most likely ended up on the Royal Mail scrapheap of unfranked mailings. Or with a bit of luck they'll be mercifully delivered for a second time at some stage. 

So here's the intended subject of the blog post, as pictured on the Schuh website:

£26.99 they cost, which frankly is nothing. My excuse, one should always have an excuse, is that I wasn't expecting the delivery until midway through this week so it never for even a split second occurred to me that the parcel might have been meant for me. Stupid is as stupid does.

Much to the delight of @aimeehilton I thought I'd list the top 5 most stupid things I've ever done instead of gushing over a cheap pair of trainers. 

1. Scoring an own goal in basketball. You'd think it wouldn't be possible but I somehow managed. Junior school match between years 5A and 5B at Tingvallaskolan, Säffle, Sweden. I get hold of the ball, sprint towards the opposition's goal, and score with a perfect lay-up. Only it wasn't actually the opposition's goal, it was our own. And when the crowd was making what I thought were cheery noises, they were actually shouting for me to turn round. We ended up losing the game and I never participated in a school game ever again. My excuse: we'd swapped sides at half time. 

2. Trying to check in to a non-existing flight. Top tip for anyone visiting Istanbul: there are two airports, Ataturk and Sahina Gökçen. Flights to London Stansted depart from both. Make sure you check which one you're flying from before arriving at the airport. Although of course you would, you'd already know that from the point of booking the holiday because you're not way stupid. I am. My excuse: I was wired on Turkish coffee.

3. Trying to check in to an existing flight but on the wrong day. I got as far as the security belt at Oslo Rygge airport before a rather bemused security person informed me that my ticket was for the following day. Consecutive 4 hour round trips for my dad, exclamations of "Again??" for my mum. My excuse: I had originally been planning on travelling back to Blighty that day but somehow booked the flight the day after instead. 28 looks so similar to 29.

4. Chucking my house keys down a drain. With some degree of justification, I used to be paranoid about losing my keys on nights out. As I was heading out to some random student night, maybe Blessed at Republic or Shag at The Leadmill or Shag 2 at The Leadmill or Stardust at the Nelson Mandela building, who knows, they all blend into one, I got the 'clever' idea of hiding my keys in the bushes outside the front door at Fairfield Lodge. That way there would be no possibility of losing them whilst pissed. What I'd failed to spot however was the bush-covered ground gently sloping towards a drain so as I put the keys down they slid down the slope and straight into the drain. Idiot. Needless to say I've carried my keys round with me since then. My excuse: people do the silliest things when sober.

5. Posting a refund application without a stamp or addressee. One of the many cancellations and disruptions caused by the London bombings on 7 July 2005 was an R.E.M. gig at Hyde Park. I'd got a couple of tickets and had been looking forward to seeing them live in concert twice in a week. Cancelling was of course the right thing to do and the ticket agent offered a full refund, all I had to do was return the tickets by post. For most people that would mean putting the tickets in an envelope, writing the company's address on the envelope, putting a stamp on the envelope and dropping the whole thing in a red post box. Me on the other hand missed out the middle steps, rendering the whole process absolutely meaningless. Might as well have set fire to the tickets. 80 quid chucked away just like that. My excuse: temporary insanity.

The moral of the story is to run a mile if I suggest making travel arrangements, safekeeping valuables or handling mail on your behalf. I've been doing the same for the past 27 years whenever I've heard the word 'basketball'. Scarred for life.