Wipe Out

Something has been bothering me for over a week now, and I have only just found the courage to formulate some sort of response to it. Thing is, last week, I went online and ordered a wipe-free tablecloth for our wreck of a dining room table. Yes, I really did. It's been bothering me ever since. What does this mean? Either (a) I have declined sadly into full-scale middle age; (b) I have lost all sense of taste, and have stepped onto the slippery slope of preferring practicality over beauty; (c) I am desperate to regain control over my so-out-of-control, scruffy house and this is a quite pathetic attempt to begin to overcome my sense of freefall, or (d) it is a metaphor for my life, which I wish could be wipe-clean. Or quite possibly a combination of all of the above. Please, no need to comment on that one. I felt only partially better when I saw that wipe-clean tablecloths come in a really quite stunning array of designs these days including those clearly targeting people like me who would like to have a wipe-clean tablecloth but would like to think they can still be 'cool' at the same time. And I felt better again when a colleague asked whether I had also bought a 'table protector' to go underneath my wipe-clean tablecloth. Thankfully, I hadn't, which apparently means I am not a fully-fledged middle aged person but am only slightly edging that way. Perhaps, you are thinking, I shouldn't let the wipe-free-tablecloth-buying thing concern me so much. After all, I clearly have bigger things to worry about. But no. I've tried, and it's still bothering me! (Is there such a thing as 'off-setting' to achieve cool-factor points? Err, for example, does it count that I still wear Urban Decay make-up?) Oh dear, perhaps I should just send it back....