Fifty Shades of Hooray! Or: Extremely Kind and Incredibly Stunned

Some friends made me a gift of that Airowear Outlyne Body Protector that I was lusting after.

Holy wow, it is the most amazing thing that has happened to me in a long time. In, maybe, ever.

So what happened was: My friend texted me to ask, did I get the letter she sent me? Nope, hadn’t, and as it was after 1pm it looked like I’d receive whatever she’d sent me the next day.

I went out, somewhere, I can’t even remember.

When I got back, there was a retrieval slip in my post box, from the special delivery postman, and as I considered it, I got a … a zap? It was like a zap of awareness. Or something. I came over all buzzy. What ever this was heralding, it was registered, and even though all the post men know me by now, they don’t leave registered things to languish in the foyer of my building.

I hardly ever bother tracking packages — I get like, five a week at least, of beauty products — but I tracked this one, and then rang the PO too, to see, would it [whatever ‘it’ was] be back at the depot by end of business?

Oh, 4.30, he should be back by then, said the nice lady on the line, who I suspected was dreamin’. But I went anyway, and was annoyed but not surprised when it proved that yer man was still out and about.

I walked home, and ran through the next morning in my mind. I had just finished a big job of work-work, and as a result, I hadn’t been keeping up with my beauty blog, and I was pretty sure that there was something else coming in the post, and maybe I should wait until that stuff showed, up, or else I’d be back and forth all week —

I was out at the bus stop at 8.30ish? Which is so not a feature of my life — being vertical before 9am. But I had to go to see what this was, and so there I was, waving down the number 7 bus.

I handed the man the slip. When he came out with the package, I got — I got all breathless and I couldn’t wait to open it, even though I knew exactly what it was — I asked him for scissors, and when he hesitated, I began to say I can use my teeth —  and he gave me the scissors and I, I opened the package and I gasped, and my hands were shaking, and I started to take off my backpack, and my coat, while simultaneously starting to peel away the plastic bag that was protecting MY NEW BODY PROTECTOR —

I came to my senses. As much as was possible at that stage, anyway. I handed back the scissors, made an incredibly breathless and teary thank you phone call, and speed walked home down the hill, clutching my gift to my chest, cradling it like a baby, still gaspy/weepy, plus: muttering to myself like a nutter.

The shock, the awe, the gratitude — immense.

***

Home! In the door! Get all this stuff off!

Get this baby on!

Ohhhhhhh. It is perrrrrrfect. It really is! It fits closely, and doesn’t smash the boobage nearly as much as the old one did. I will be so happy to wear this, so compact, so streamlined. I remember just feeling so bad because that old BP made me look like a feckin’ Orc, or something and this one! This one does not.

I wore it around the house for two hours. I sat here, at this very computer, giggling to myself as I blogged and wrote and worked.

I thought: This is going to make me such a better rider!

***

Well, no, it didn’t. I mean, I knew it wouldn’t… I wore it on Saturday, and things went pretty much the same: still dropping the inside hand; not always looking down to see did Connell get the lead change, but always, always getting busted when I do look down to check. Dammit. We had to do flying change-y kind of stuff, and ah, man, I said to Connell Look, I know you can do this, you always manage at least one time, let’s try for two, but I wasn’t specific enough and we did it one time on each rein, when I meant twice on each rein. Also, I didn’t quite get when to ask for the change, so that didn’t help.

But I felt amazing. Still a bit breathless, because it wants some breaking in, and it feels very corset-y. But amazing, and not only because it’s new thing, a new thing I wanted, but because it was a gift. I am humbled, grateful, and full of delight!