To tell or not to tell, that is the question…

And I’m asking it basically because I can’t face facing the fact the world is clearly going back to lockdown-hell-in-a-handcart very shortly. So I’m on a distraction arc.

One of the things I learned in the LAST lockdown was that my kids sharing a room is not going to be ideal moving into the future. One of them may not survive beyond teenhood, and I’ve got no idea which one to back. It could go either way, frankly. Small Small has weight and determination on her side; Big Small has RAGE.

And that basically means, longer term, I need somewhere else to work than the spare box room – and that I’m very seriously considering joining the multitudes and investing in a garden office.

Garden offices are one of the big Covid WINNERS. Turns out nobody likes their family that much, and many would quite like to get away from them and move out, even if they can only wangle moving out to a Man/Woman cave at the bottom of the garden.

In my mind this will be a stylish sanctuary where I will suddenly become super productive at work, possibly gaining industry fame and a huge salary involving 000s in the all right places, plus be visited by a creative muse, causing me to simultaneously knock out that book Boynotquiteonthenetheredge has been nagging me about, and probably getting a great publishing deal and winning The Booker Prize in 2021. Or maybe 2022. Let’s be realistic.

There is, I admit, a nagging feeling somewhere at the back of my mind that even with a garden office I might, weirdly, still be a procrastinating chronic underachiever, and that the sanctuary will either be too cold or too sunny or both at once, become a breeding ground for mahoosive spiders round the back, and end up being furnished with crappy garden furniture, kids’ bikes, and the old paddling pool.

I am quashing this.

Because DISTRACTION ARC.

Anyway, all of this led to a nice lady coming round to take a look at a dark corner of my garden and take a few measurements.

And this is where I had my ‘to tell or not to tell’ moment.

Because measuring involves bending over.

And the nice lady was wearing a pair of well-loved black leggings.

And, it turns out, a very nice, very visible pair of high-rise black lacy pants – that frankly put my enormous granny knickers to shame, and I wish I had the belly and post c-section nerves to wear myself.

I also wish that people would tell me when I’m having exactly this sort of wardrobe malfunction.

Mine are never sexy wardrobe malfunctions. They tend to involve buttoning something up wonky, wearing bright pink pants under something light and not noticing until I glance sideways and wonder who the fat trollop is in that shop window, or leaving a skirt tucked into my pants after going to the loo.

I once wore a dress to work inside out for an entire day, and finally noticed at about 3pm after a wee. I went back to tell my team, only to find out that they KNEW, and hadn’t said anything because – and this is a direct quote – ‘they thought I already knew.’ WHY WOULD I BE WEARING MY DRESS ON INSIDE OUT ON PURPOSE??????

I’m not actually sure whether this reflects worse on them or me, come to think of it.

Anyway, as a result of these various experiences I would rather KNOW than not know. But there’s no doubt that telling a stranger this sort of thing is a bit, well… awkward.

Nice garden room lady and I had slightly bonded over the rudimentary, and probably completely inaccurate, application of trigonometry (it’s a triangular plot), but we’d still only known each other for a sum total of about ten minutes, while embarking on the first tentative footsteps towards exchanging a not insignificant amount of money.

On the other hand, I was already intimately acquainted with her under garments.

And imaging her next visit to be to some pervy bloke who’s exactly the sort of idiot that fancies an office room makes them look important and productive. YES I KNOW.

I was so distracted by the ‘to tell or not to tell’ dilemma I spent much of the last few minutes of our garden-room conversation answering quite at random.

What if she gets offended? What if she gets embarrassed? What if it’s deliberate and that’s the look she’s going for? What if she tells me to mind my own business? What if I’m not supposed to be policing women’s bodies/telling people what to wear? What am I actually going to SAY? Is ‘I can see your pants and the outline of your fanny’ too blunt? Is it actually any of my bees wax? Is this what sisterhood looks like? Feminism? Do I need to add this to my endless list of worries, OR my endless list of guilt? WHICH ONE OF THEM IS CURRENTLY LONGER – QUICK LETS GO THROUGH EVERY AWKWARD THING YOU’VE EVER SAID AND REGRETTED, AND NOT SAID AND ALSO REGRETTED, YES RIGHT NOW!

So in the end I….….

Told her.

On the way out.

I think I mumbled something about her lycra having given up the ghost but I’ve blocked the details out, now.

Boynotquiteonthenetheredge is horrified, and firmly of the opinion I’m never going to see a quote from these people, or hear from them again.

I think I might get a discount. But that could be the distraction arc talking, also known as self delusion.

So to tell or not to tell? What would you do? When have you done it/not done it? And would you like it done back?

#lalalaletsnottalkaboutcovid#sisterhood#totellornottotell#overthinking