I knew where I was supposed to be straight away. There was a long table with a lone, smiley faced lady lady waving frantically at me.
I was at the new mums coffee morning meet and greet getting to know you type situation. And as it transpired, I was only one of half a dozen new school mums that got the memo and bothered to come.
The rest of the large table steadily filled with ladies who all knew each other, coming to catch up and check out the fresh blood.
For a while there, I sat and listened. If I had closed my eyes. I could swear I was in England, as the accents floated softly around me.
There were your typical team players and the team caption. She was a super friendly soul who took it upon herself to take down all of my details and tell me who everyone else at the table was, the name, sex and age of all their children and other trivial tidbits.
And it was then when it struck me.
I was totally moving to Pleasantville!
Everyone was so pleasant and nice and pretty and organised and interested in everything.
As I relaxed a bit, I totally confessed to the original lone, smiley faced waving lady that I did have some unsubstantiated concerns that people of my new hood would be snobby.
She told me that when she moved into the hood, she too had some concerns about being accepted.... because she was big.
I looked at her. She was not even "big" and then I thought if that was one of the yardsticks that this tribe used as a factor to acceptance, I was totally fucked.
Someone asked what I did for a living. I told her that I was a writer which immediately preceded the question, "Oh really! What do you write?"
I told her that I write all sorts of things before very quickly and successfully shifting the conversation to another topic.
After a coffee and an hour, it didn't look like the party was breaking up any time soon, so I decided to take my leave while the going was good and I had not said anything offensive or embarrassing.
I stood up and thanked everyone for organising the gathering and one of the mums told me that there was a social event at the school in the coming weeks, and although it is not advertised, you are more than welcome to bring wine to it.
Hello!
"So, can I bring a hip flask of vodka as well?" I asked.
They sort of looked at each other and said.... "I suppose so.."
"Great!" I picked up my bag. "Can I bring my Orchy Bong?"
Crickets. A dog barked. Somewhere in the distance, a baby cried.
So close, Mrs Woog.
So close.
