Why does life so rarely match expectation?

I was ruminating on this today for the most ridiculous of reasons. My wonderful Mazda MX6 has just registered 100,000 miles ie. taxed the left-most column of the odometer for the first and probably only time. I knew this was coming of course and I had visions of the odometer clicking over to the magic 100K as the car roared through the Cotswolds, sturdily climbed some challenging hill in Wales or accelerated to some wonderfully illegal speed down the M1 motorway. I thought it was a red letter moment for my car and should be celebrated accordingly. Instead the odometer clicked to the magic figure as my sleek lovely car coughed its way through crawling traffic on the outskirts of Birmingham. I was a bit disappointed really - not for the first time in my life, and it made me think how many rather more important milestones never go according to plan.



Think of your first adult kiss. You want it to be under some leafy bower where romance is in the air. You are nervous but manful. You grab her tightly and press your lips to hers and she melts in your arms.

No. She is the one you don't fancy - and sadly neither does anyone else - and she grabs you at a party when her mum is in the kitchen making sandwiches and kisses you so hard she sucks out the only false tooth you have after being kicked in the teeth at football. Exit left in embarrassment.

A little later in your life and its real sex. You imagine you will walk in hand in hand through a park in mid summer, melt into each others arms and take her gently, confidently and manfully on a warm lawn covered in rose petals. Fraid not. Its the entry behind the chemists shop on a cold night in January. She's in the mood and your 'machinery' is struggling to survive the cold.
"For Christ's sake," she mutters impatiently, "It's not THAT hard to find! Haven't you done this before?"

The first job interview where you wow the panel of interviewers with your charm, confidence and wit, finally exulting in the praise ringing in your ears. "The obvious choice", "charming young man", " a natural" come to mind. Er no. More the hasty and slightly embarrassed confab where 5 of them then leave with a muttered goodbye and the 6th, usually a woman of middle years says "I'm afraid that on this occasion we felt you did not have the appropriate qualifications for our needs." Then she leans forward and says, with a jaded smile "May I offer some advice. A loud check sports jacket may be alright for church fetes but if you want to get on in business could I suggest your mother buys you a suit!" Exit once more in ignominy, the only consolation being to draw her face on the toilet paper in the company loo and then apply it to the area fit for purpose.

Then as you eventually progress, however slugglishly, through life you try your hand at politics and stand for the local Council. Your first political speech will of course be a total resounding triumph, the assembled throng standing as one and clapping you off the rostrum while you modestly take the plaudits. Well not quite. You get a question on housing benefit you should have anticipated, haven't done the homework and you stare like a buffoon at thirty or so people eagerly awaiting your wisdom. Then coughing theatrically you beg to leave for 5 minutes to 'clear your throat' when in fact you have suddenly been struck by an attack of nervous diahorroea and hope you can make it that far.


But in the end I guess you struggle through and realise after 60 years that life ain't so bad and you seem to have come out of it pretty well. You've also hidden most of this from the general public and they all think you are a totally self confident individual who has sailed serenely from one challenge to another. This is quite reassuring because you begin to realise that if you've fooled them, then all this time they have probably fooled you.

Then it all comes into perspective and my disappointment that my odometer hit a milestone in the middle of a traffic jam all seems very silly indeed!