It's the moment we all dream of. Moving out from home into an ultra-cool crib which we will turn into The Party Palace (that’s definitely a club in Thailand) and Zendom... all at the same time. Our expectations ahead of standing on our own two feet were lofty, to say the least and often riddled with obstacles. My own personal ‘flying the nest’ experience involved living with a 45-year-old man who slept with his door open (going for a wee at night and not waking him up became an epically monumental exercise in stealth) and an (admittedly lovely) family who would eat Sunday night roasts together whilst I sat alone in my bedroom, chewing on an old piece of toast. I know, don't cry for me Argentina.
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Anyway, after a few blips, most of us now live happily sans parents. And oh what LARKS it is, based on the following pointers:
1. There's no-one to tell you not to eat a jar of Nutella an hour before dinner incase you spoil your appetite.
2. There's no-one to tell you that only slatterns take to the bath (or the bed) mid-afternoon.
3. There's no-one to stare pointedly at your floordrobe and proclaim you a 'slut'. (It has different connotations for your parents generation, I swear.)
4. There's no-one over the age of 50 who wants to sit down and watch telly with you, "so we can spend time together" and then sit, stricken, through a disturbing sex scene where one Geordie Shore cast member mounts another and goes at it, hell for leather, like a hungry jackal.
5. There's no-one to tell you that given the violent rash spread across your chest and purple teeth, you should refrain from that 5th glass of Blossom Hill Rouge. (Your friends are too nice. Or too cowardly. Or equally purple.)
6. There's no one to come looming into your peripheral vision, wearing bi-focals halfway down their face and shriek "Is that a big spot?" AS IF YOU YOURSELF HAD NOT NOTICED.
7. There's no-one to give your Friday night pussy pelmet the stink-eye, or mildly comment that it might be time to buy some new tights as there's a miniature hole on the calf.
8. There’s no-one, on that note, to analyse your fashion choices with retrograde nostalgia and therefore make you feel horribly unoriginal - "Those are back in fashion? Are they now really trendy? I remember when Aunt Gertie loved those!" - and cause you to thenceforth be trapped between the simultaneous desire to state your trend-less sartorial independence ("no, they're not in fashion, I just like them") and reassure your mother that you are infact normal and that just because you are wearing a totally pink outfit does not mean she needs to take you to a shrink (“it's very Simone Rocha SS14, mum”.)
9. There's no-one to 'tiptoe' into your bedroom, seemingly wearing breeze blocks on their feet, to see if you're awake at 8am on a Saturday, when your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and your eyes are still gin-logged. (Though nothing, nigh nothing, beats a smiley mum bringing you a cup of tea in bed.)
10. There's no-one to tut tut tut when you dash out the door, clearly late for work. "Heavens you might get FIRED. You mustn’t get FIRED. There are VERY FEW JOBS around at the moment". (Lord knows what my own mum would make of my freelancer's work-from-home uniform: currently my boyfriend's dressing gown, three pairs of socks and a face pack).
Oh, but OH. Sometimes there are things that make you really wish your mum and dad were there:
1. There’s no-one to read the electricity and gas meters. They’re always locked in a cupboard. In some weird part of the flat block. And you never know where the key is. Or which metre to read; as, of course, they aren’t numbered. So then you forget to ring EDF and they charge you an ‘average’ monthly usage which is apparently based on a serotonin-loving family of eight.
2. There’s no-one to warn you that if you eat an entire jar of Nutella (true story), an hour before your roast dinner or in fact at any time at all, then you’re going to not only appreciate the splendorous meat feast, but give yourself a case of indigestion from outer space. And bloat. And/or wind.
3. There’s no-one to wake you up with a nice cup of tea. Instead you’re likely to be woken up by the loud Italian man above you, playing “It’s the Final Countdown” on a loop, because it’s the weekend and “because he can”. (Again, true story.)
4. There’s no-one else to sign for the Ocado delivery that you optimistically booked a delivery slot for at 10pm, on a Friday evening. There’s also no-one else to warn you that Ocado will potentially replace everything in your basket with something else, essentially nullifying your middle-class smugness at having done a week’s worth of shopping from your bed, rather than braving Tesco Metro’s crap selection every evening.
5. There’s no-one else to find the incredibly specific battery that the ever-beeping smoke alarm demands. OK, there’s your boyfriend, but he’s about as clueless as you.
6. There’s no-one to remind you not to stick the damn knife in the damn toaster. With repeated toasters.
7. There’s no-one to iron your clothes. Thus saving you half an hour of solid ironing, on one item, only for it to emerge, to your howls of rage, still crumpled.
8. There’s no-one (in a non-sexual scenario) to curl up next to you when you’ve been dumped, or fired, and stroke your hair and tell you that you are clever and beautiful and good. If your friends do do this – rather, than say, take you out and get your drunk - then I’d say ick, you may have moved beyond the parameters of good friendship.
9. There’s no-one to keep you abreast of world news and give you Syrian Politics for Dummies seminars that you’d be too embarrassed to ask for from anyone else. You now run the constant risk of being busted for being ‘an un-aware person’.
10. There’s no one-quite like your parents. As they may drive you round the bend, but – as I’m reminded every time I go home - they’re the funniest housemates you’ll ever have.