Clever Girl
This is a story about a clever girl who wasn’t as clever as she hoped she was or maybe she simply misplaced her cleverness, or maybe she was just slightly struggling with being a clever girl everyone expected her to be. These stories portray the reality of a clever girl, not the perfect image projected by the popular culture about women, girls and most certainly clever girls.
Introduction to the idea of a Clever Girl
Clever Girl is a woman in her mid to late ’30s who has enough experience to know what the world is about. She is kind, compassionate and living off the benefits of her very clever 20’s.
Of course the clever girl has very successful career, loving family, big house in a city and charming husband who is always there for her. She sends her kids to private schools and afternoon activities for which she can pay herself without having to tap to her hubby’s income. She looks amazing, her body is flawless, diet filled with home made organic meals. She is never tired and hardly ever complains. She spends all her free time with her children.
In order to get a promotion and a pay rise Clever Girl needs to go back to school. She really doesn’t mind working three times as hard as her male colleagues. She is simply happy and grateful for the opportunity to work in male dominated industry.
When the clever girl was in her 20’s, apart from being into fashion and popular culture she was a keen and shrewd investor. The investments paid off allowing her to buy her dream house in a posh part of the city, close to all the good schools. Clever Girl always has time for her friends and girls nights’ out. She is willing and ready to have sex any day and any time whenever her hubby feels like it and of course she always comes. She never complains and is the queen of organizational skills.
Welcome to the Clever Girl’s world.
Chapter 1
Clever Girl sends her children to the best school she could possibly find. Of course, the school isn’t ideal but she knows by now that not that many things in life are the way she would like them to be and not everything (although a lot) can be bent to her liking.
She tries to be as helpful within the school community as she can and hardly ever says no to someone’s request. She organizes play dates, bakes cakes, attends festivals and organizes parents for outings and helping within the school community.
She tries to be understanding of people’s needs and accommodate the needs when she can but there is always a limit to what the Clever Girl can take.
Clever Girl cannot take fucking selfishness and endless excuses some parents seem to come up with every time their help is needed. She simply doesn’t see a point in creating a community with people who just want to take without giving anything back.
Clever Girl is very busy too; she works full time, takes care of the children and is in charge of the family life.
Therefore she hates when people take the piss.
If someone pushes her to her limits she turns into a psycho bitch and this is something her perfectly composed middle-class upbringing doesn’t want to do.
Chapter 2
Clever Girl loves meeting new people, both in her professional and personal life.
One way of meeting them in her professional life is hiring freelancers for developing new projects. When she likes someone and they prove to be compatible working with her, she often re-hires the same person for several projects.
What she doesn’t like though, hates even, is working with men who talk shit about women and “grace” the society with their opinions on social media.
Unfortunately one of her freelancers made a mistake of taking to FB to rant about how dreadful women drivers were. According to the asshole (that is his real name from now on) women are much more inferior as drivers to men, lack focus behind the wheel and are totally careless when it comes to obeying the rules. On the other hand male drivers are law-obeying citizens causing no accidents (perhaps the tiny touches can happen to everyone), always stopping at the pedestrian crossing, never taking over other cars on double lines, always parking perfectly and in the right place, never getting speeding tickets and always, always letting other cars in.
And all of this not to mention that men drivers never experience road rage. To help you imagine it; they are like little Buddha’s behind the wheel: calm, composed and in total peace with their surroundings. It’s definitely women who are the cause of all the danger on the roads and who on earth gave them the right to drive anyway???
Clever Girl was beyond furious when she had read it. At first, she was pondering on replying but soon enough she realized that the asshole was not worth her precious time. She is never ever going to hire the asshole again, and this is punishment enough for the asshole. People need to take responsibilities for their stupid rants on social media. So please stop fucking calling and emailing me, you fucking asshole.
Chapter 3
Social Hierarchic
Clever Girl has been around the block for enough time to know that a lot of people are all about prestige and money.
However, now and then she is caught off guard and finds herself surprised by the constantly upgraded level of social convention of the upper middle class.
It was at the school picnic when the Clever Girl realized that the competition of showing off ones wealth moved to a totally new level. A level called picnic blanket.
At the school we all know that people can afford pretty comfortable lifestyle; at the end of the day our kids go to a private school. However, the posh, fancy-looking and
as expensive as hell picnic blanket really tell the onlooker, who doesn’t know who you are, how much money one has.
Clever Girl never thought much about her picnic blankets and was using the regular, affordable IKEA stuff.
But for the first time in her life she felt somewhat embarrassed sitting on her £5 red blanket and thinking what other people were going to think about her. She wasn’t uncomfortable with her blanket’s price tag but rather by her thoughts and wonderings. Yes, the Clever Girl who was preparing to be clever for many years, got herself caught up in the silliness of having and showing off just like the rest of the society.
At that very moment she knew she needed to re-define her cleverness.
Chapter 4
The Tourist Attractions
Clever Girl has never been into tourist attractions regardless of where it might have been. She prefers to sit in a coffee shop observing people while sipping her Latte. Besides, as we all know by now, Clever Girl is not a fan of spending money on silly stuff.
However, sometimes the occasion calls for spending. For the Father’s Day she decided to take her family to the tallest building in London. Dads were able to go for free and that is the kind of savings Clever Girl likes. She wasn’t completely sure herself if she should or shouldn’t go but the kids wanted her to join in. So they all went up to admire London from high above. Luckily it was not extremely cloudy and it wasn’t raining for a change (yeah!!!).
In a nutshell, the whole experience was just boring and disgracefully overpriced; and so not worth the time and the money. I know, I know; you may think that the tallest building was a huge investment and the venue needs to hire a lot of stuff, and… I understand all that. But charging people £30 for looking at the view, which in fact belongs to everyone (the view is not private, even though I’m more than certain some people would love to make it private and I bet that the governmental minions are thinking hard how to sell it) is a bit of madness. (I’m not going to mention the £12 for a glass of champagne.) The whole experience lasted 30 min (which still is a pretty long time to look at buildings while trying not to throw up) and all this time Clever Girl was trying to figure out why she allowed herself to be fuelled. At last, she came up with no conclusion.
The Clever Girl didn’t feel that clever after all; in fact, she left the building feeling pretty stupid.
The whole trip proved to be rather worthless and Clever Girl promised to herself that there is no fucking way she was going to spend even a penny more in the tallest building at all.
Chapter 5
Parents Start Paying Attention!!!
As a good mom, the Clever Girl tries to go with her son to as many of his football practice sessions as she can. You must know here that Clever Girl is not a huge football fan & in all honesty football pisses her off big time. One of the main reasons for that is probably the fact that her other half and his mates talk mostly football every time they meet.
Clever Girl knows that her son is not going to be David Beckham but she has never forced him into becoming a footballer.
Most astonishingly, her son enjoys standing in goal and tries to do so as often as he can. He also does the most adorable happy dance every time his team scores.
So, while her son is trying his best playing football the Clever Girl enjoys observing him giving him her full attention.
She proudly watches how he exercises, plays and interacts with other children. Unfortunately she seems to be an exception. At the most recent practice she noticed that most of the parents are extremely busy watching their… phones. Clever Girl understands that life is fast paced and grow-ups need to be connected to the global network 24/7, and especially on a Saturday morning. Or, what is even more important, try to set their personal bests in just another online game.
Seriously people; WTH is wrong with you!!! Can’t you even find an hour for your own child? What is the point of having children in the first place if you have no time for them?
In all fairness first shock came before the practice even started; when Clever Girl heard one mother screaming at her small son who seemed to be enormously disturbed by her screams. After she poured out her rage and frustration, she went straight to her phone and for the whole hour was too engaged with her phone to see how well her son was doing. She couldn’t even be bothered to look up at the little one when he came to have some water. Way to go woman!!!
One father was so consumed by his phone (of course he didn’t look up even once at his son from the bloody screen) that his son thought that the father was gone and burst into tears while looking for him. After few minutes the father emerged quite surprised that his son couldn’t find him. He was seating at the same spot all this time, although children were moving in small groups all around the pitch doing different exercises. According to the father it was an unnecessary tantrum and if the boy wants to be a real man he shouldn’t cry.
Clever Girl wanted to slap both of the fuckers. No, she wanted to shove their phones up their asses!!!
Clever Girl knows that these are just fucking toys only to keep people entertain & updated but for a lot of people it’s their “real lives”
Clever Girl could never understand & always will be very critical of parents who choose phones over their child and she is not politically correct when it comes to that issue.
Chapter 6
Life Offline
Urban people are constantly on the look-out for new, one of a kind, mind-blowing experience. Clever Girl is not much different in this aspect from others. She loves indulging herself in innovative and exciting ways of spending free time or collecting good memories for the future when she is old, tired and, probably, wrinkled.
Since Clever Girl was a little, but already clever, girl she has always been into bright lights of the city and fast-paced life of ever changing city landscape.
She was never a country girl; even a small thought of having to visit her family in the countryside was sending shivers down her spine and giving her instant depression.
However, this summer against her own will her husband decided to take her on a real life adventure to the deep countryside where some people still farm the way their fathers and grandfathers did.
With a heavy heart Clever Girl packed her designers bags and left the city behind only to discover that the disconnection from the Internet for whole 48 hours was what she needed the most. The Internet-free countryside put the whole experience into a totally different perspective.
For the whole 2 days she was offline and for the first time in a long time she felt relaxed and didn’t jump every time her phone made any kind of noise. In fact her phone was blissfully silent. She went on walks with her children and picked wild berries not thinking or fearing unanswered emails piling up, phone calls not being answered and must-be-done-yesterday projects waiting for her around each corner of the house.
She was calm and composed for the whole two days.
However, the moment she drove back to the city and got connected once again the calmness vanished instantly, replaced by frustration about the Internet speed. She immediately was back in full swing, checking emails, the best of the best and FB for updates. Now, she was back in the city so she had to be a full time city girl.
Chapter 7
Clever Girl is definitely not the mother of the year. She likes working, loves going out and spending money on herself not only on her children. Her every conversation doesn’t start with “Guess what my precious monkey did today, this morning or an hour ago…” She talks about her children but in her humble opinion there is always time and place for that.
When she is with her kids she is with her kids giving them 100% of her attention. Of course at times there are incidents when she browses through her FB especially when she is made to watch Thomas for the 100th time or picks up a phone call but never while eating together. She never gives her kids a Smartphone or an iPad (doesn’t even have one) in order to keep them quite while waiting for the doctor’s appointment or going on a train or having brunch with friends and family.
Don’t get her wrong she totally gets that under certain circumstances the use of modern technologies is required to occupy a child for the time being. But using gadgets every single time a grown up suppose to be spending quality time with the little one is purely fucked up. What is the point of having children if one wants them to be as quite and invisible as possible?
Spending quality time with children is what builds their relationship skills. How otherwise are the youngsters suppose to learn how to communicate and build relations with others? Let’s just be honest here: relationships is what matters the most in life and it’s not an easy task to build a good lasting relationship as most adults know by now.
Modern gadgets are just that modern gadgets that won’t provide emotional support when you need it the most.
WTF is wrong with having an old fashion conversation around the dinner table or playing imaginary games while waiting for an appointment or food in the restaurant.
Clever Girl doesn’t want to be critical over parental choices of other parents but people wake the fuck up and build relationship with your kids before it’s too late.
PS. Parents suppose to set examples for their children and can’t expect anything different if they have no time for them when they are small, the kids are not going to have time for the parents when they get old.
Chapter 8
Moms and Coffee Shops
Most moms on school runs know how important local coffee shops are. Often a coffee shop equals a lifesaver. Not only because of the wonderful taste and smell of the addictive substance they serve but because this is the place where your support system hangs out.
Clever Girl lives in South East London. The local area where her kids go to school has three coffee shops. After 9.00 am the three of them are like beehives, buzzing with chatter, baby screams and steaming coffee machines. Clever Girl is a regular in one of them and used to get at least 2 take away coffees a week and stay for at least one coffee morning with other moms. It was all before she decided to be health and came off coffee.
Apart from the morning coffee and support system, coffee shops offer also “undisturbed” brainstorming sessions for moms who boil down ideas for new and innovative ways of increasing business growth or for start-ups. In this respect, unlike in many others, Clever Girl is not different to other moms and pretty often uses her local coffee shop for work related activities.
Last week, while drinking her decaf latte and deeply lost in her thoughts, Clever Girl was brought back to reality by a conversation she overheard (that should be a warning to all the moms talking business in public spaces) about business, business growth, marketing ideas, business ideas and other business related matters that should not EVER be discussed in public!!!! (people steal ideas!!!!) Some of the ideas discussed between the two moms were pretty cool.
Clever Girl heard one of the moms (apparently the brain behind the business) talking extensively about very specific expansion and promotional techniques and their effectiveness in this specific area, that she was either thinking of using or already implementing. If only Clever Girl was in an industrial espionage business that would be a perfect opportunity.
All Clever Girls out there should know that this is a no-no situation. Not everyone is as kind and ethical as the Clever Girl was to remind the moms that they were in a public space sharing ideas that potentially could bring millions in revenue and change theirs, and not someone else’s lives. After all it’s all about finding your niche and staying ahead of the curve.
So please, for your own sake, keep quiet and talk such matters in the privacy of your own home!!!