SATC for the Uninitiated

This weekend, 40s chick was on a running camp weekend.

Running camp weekend is dominated by females and is therefore also known as

• Eating cheese and crackers weekend
• Supporting regional wineries weekend
• Jaffas-as-breakfast-food weekend
• Sobbing over chick flicks weekend

With our ‘bunkhouse’ comprising 7 females, with *Donald (*name suppressed for many many reasons) being the lone male soldier and valiant partner of one of the other females (and somewhat north-facing in terms of the age demographic) he was always going to find it an interesting sociological foray. From about the South Gippsland Highway turnoff when Donald realised he was about to spend the weekend housed with 7 women, he was probably wondering how it was going to go down (as well as looking for the nearest haven of testosterone for some kick-to-kick and sports talk).

Instead, Donald found himself in the company of some endorphin-fuelled, carb-loaded females perusing a chick-flick selection that included When Harry Met Sally, 4 Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually amongst others. (at this point, despite his running program not calling for it. I would have been unsurprised to see him flee at speed for the hills)

Instead, when the consensus was that the first Sex and the City Movie was the obvious choice, he looked mometarily startled, but, separated from his partner who had gone off for a solo short run hit-out or some such, accepted a glass of chilled sauv blanc, took a seat by the cheese platter and settled in for the afternoon.

Here’s what he learned:

Even a proposal can be too pedestrian

 Knowing what we knew, except for the one SATC Movie v1 virgin amongst us, we all understood that Big’s pragmatic proposal to Carrie was not the stuff of which NYC dreams were made.

 

Big: Would you want to get married?

Carrie: Well, I didn’t, didn’t think that was an option.

Big: What if it was an option?

Carrie: Why? What? Do you want to get married?

Big: I wouldn’t mind being married to you. Would you mind being married to me?

Carrie: No, no, not, not if that’s what you wanted. I mean, is, is that what you want?

Big: I want you. So, ok.

Carrie: So really, we’re, we’re getting married?

Big: We’re getting married. Should we get you a diamond?

Carrie: No. No. Just get me a really big closet.

Despite the mention of extravagant clothes-storage-real-estate, this does not reek of romance.

 

40s chicks have baggage, or at the very least a bunch of stuff that requires storage or removalists.

So much so that ‘it took four friends, three days to put twenty years into thirty-eight boxes’

So if you think that you can just spare three shelves and a metre of hanging space in your bachelor pad….

Think again.

The most sensible woman can go all Bridezilla

Somehow, in the space of about 17 minutes, albeit with Vogue Magazine and a bunch of couture designers egging her on, Carrie’s sweet little vintage dress (cue Antony ‘the bride wore no-one’) got kicked to the kerb by a coffin sized container of silk courtesy of Vivienne Westwood.

 

However unlikely this is to happen to your everyday 40s chick, be very very aware that the arrival of the dress-in-a-box will jack your intimate gathering into full scale nuptial-ganza and mean that your ability to name every guest sharing your dream-day is about as likely as Lindsay Lohan correctly listing her hookups (even non-chronologically) whilst sober.

Chicks will always cry, at random

In the manner of the best of running-camp-esque-relay, we all managed to turn on tears rather sequentially (no point in shedding hydration simultaneously). For some it was the Brooklyn Bridge scene where Miranda forgave Steve’s cheating, for the broody ones it was when Charlotte moved from apparently-barren to unexpectedly-pregnant, for others it was when Samantha gained a belly from emotional eating (hey, we’ve all been there right?)

The collective tears shed that afternoon over fictitious characters, if harvested and recycled would have rendered all our long-run-day electrolyte drinks redundant.

Hell hath no fury like the bestie of a woman scorned

After Carrie’s jilting, she was shrouded in a sea of tulle-clad bridesmaids, in the form of her three besties, who all plotted ways to ease Carrie’s pain and wreak revenge on Big in whatever form they could muster.

Kudos to Charlotte who taught our hapless observer Donald that upon ditching someone’s bestie you could expect a well-rehearsed ‘I curse the day you were born’ from a pregnant ally followed by the depositing of an unexpected dose of amniotic fluid on your lovely leather loafers.

 

Needless to say, Donald has signed up for the blokey-bunkhouse when 2015 camp rolls around.

 

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