Misadventures by Sylvia Smith

loved to do her shopping in Sainsbury’s. If the load was too heavy to carry she simply wheeled the trolley out of the store and all the way home. On one of my visits I saw two Sainsbury’s shopping trolleys in her back garden.
    Shaunagh loved loud music and a blaringTV and didn’t pay too much attention to the neighbours who preferred her to be quieter. She received an official letter of complaint from the local Council over the volume of noise in her home. Her reaction was to laugh, show the letter to all her friends, then dump it in the dustbin, still continuing with her boisterous lifestyle.
    Our difference in accents was sometimes a problem to me, although Shaunagh understood every word I said to her. She came to my flatlet for dinner one evening and as usual we had a long chat. I told her of my black admirer across the street. ‘I quite like him,’ I said. ‘I like the way he rides down the road on his bike with his straw hat on.’ I thought Shaunagh asked me, ‘Is it a posh bike?’ I replied, ‘Well, I don’t know about that, it looks like any ordinary bike to me.’ She replied, ‘Well, you must know whether it’s a push-bike or a motorbike.’
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    Shaunagh and I went to the cinema to see a Richard Gere movie as we found him to be quite attractive. Halfway through the film she was bursting to go to the loo. She delayed her visit some twenty minutes as we realised the plot was heading for a heavy sex scene and she was determined not to miss it. As the actors bared themselves Shaunagh’s eyes were glued to the screen. Once they put their clothes on she dashed to the toilet at top speed.
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    Shaunagh shared a furnished house with a Scottish girl aged twenty-six called Sharon. They usually got on very well together, partly because Shaunagh did all the housework and turned a blind eye to the fact that Sharon didn’t do any.
    They did fall out one weekend when Shaunagh arrived home minus her street door key at one thirty on a Sunday morning. Sharon was with her boyfriend. Shaunagh walked to the nearest telephone box and told her of her predicament. Sharon replied, ‘I can’t come over to you with the key, Shaunagh, because I’m with John and we haven’t got any clothes on.’ Shaunagh tried to persuade her to get John to drive the ten-minute journey to their home but Sharon simply said they were too busy. This meant that Shaunagh had to spend the night in the porch of the house. She settled herself on the concrete as best she could and fell asleep in her huddled position. At 7 a.m. her next door neighbour looked out of his front room window and saw Shaunagh’s legs laying down the pathway. He decided to investigate. After some discussion he said, ‘I’ll climb over the back fence and see if I can get into your kitchen.’ He was successful and Shaunagh was at last able to get into the house. She went straight to bed and rested her aching bones.
    Sharon’s refusal to bring the street door key annoyed Shaunagh. She said to me, ‘She wastoo busy having sex to come and give me the key.‘
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    Another Saturday night ended in disaster in the small hours for Shaunagh. Once again she had forgotten her street door key and had to sleep outside. This time she didn’t know Sharon’s whereabouts.
    Unfortunately Shaunagh had spent the previous evening drinking and eating to excess and she was desperate to go to the toilet from both front and back outlets. There were no public lavatories close to her and she felt she couldn’t wake next door at three o’clock in the morning so she decided she had no alternative but to urinate and excrete on the pathway. Sharon returned home at about 4.30 a.m. and Shaunagh once again got into the house. She told Sharon how she had relieved herself, proudly pointing to the mound of excretion. Shaunagh was not embarrassed in any way and related the incident to all her