Tropical Confusion

It's never a good sign when you wake up with your head at the wrong end of the bed. That, incidentally, happens rather a lot of late. I dread to think just exactly what goes on in my dreams for my body to want to make a complete 180 degree turn overnight, but waking up upside down is generally a pretty solid foreboding about the rest of my day.

As you might have gathered from my second-last post, I'm ill again. I'm sure it's just a bout of that cold epidemic that's been going around, but I've been laying low nonetheless. The irony of it all is that tonight, I'm due to pick up Dr.Jim's mischievous other half at the airport in Brussels, as she's coming for a girlie visit for a few days. Last time Dr.Jim & Lou were over in Ghent with me, I was a pretty appalling host what with snot-rags spread around me left, right and centre, and I had promised them a healthier reception on a next attempt.

Anyway, I woke up this morning thinking my feeble body could do with a bit of sunshine and some extra vites so as to make a good appearance for my guest, but then, as usually happens in Belgeland, the view from the window promised little more than rain. So, I hauled myself over to the solarium. *Hangs head in shame* I know I know. Not THE brightest of ideas, but like I said, it was just bound to be one of those days.

After getting myself all undressed and goosebumpey, I went to lie down on what looked like a very modern sunbed. Too modern apparently. Once the lights came on, an exotic female voice announced that she'd be guiding me through the tanning process. Slightly panicked, I thought: "wot?! surely it's nothing more than pressing a button and getting baked golden?! I mean, once the lights are on, what more does a person need?!"

Not so.

Apparently, there's facial tanners, ab-tanners, bum tanners, facial fans, whole body fans, mp3 sound options, time delay mechanisms, head-tilt options AND an option to switch off the lady's exotic voice. So here's me thinking: "I just need to focus on finding the lady's off switch, so I can quietly revel in the idea of being on a sunny beach somewhere random." But of course, in all my blondness, I pressed the wrong button, inadvertently turning all fans on max speed, making it feel rather more like I was trying to survive a hurricane, rather than having a quiet one on the beach. It took me exactly 1.5 minutes to disable the fans. I'm sure that'll have helped my head-cold tremendously.

A disastrous couple of attempts later, I finally managed to disable the Lady's voice, only to see the lights turned off a few seconds later. Clearly, my time was up. Now... can I just say that all this confusion is extremely dangerous for a blonde like myself. I was so distracted by the interface, that I didn't even notice I had started to sunburn.

I would kindly request people not to hug, handshake, brush past or touch me for the next few days. Fank ewe.