Ms Paltrow, I am disappointed in you. No it’s not a belated reaction to the fruity name you gave your daughter, it’s not that you only allow your children to watch cartoons in French or Spanish (apparently true) or indeed that you somehow manage to look so darned beautiful at the age of 40.
No Gwyneth (if you don’t mind me being so personal), the reason I am disappointed in you is that you have been papped recently dressed to perfection yet having price labels still stuck to the bottom of your shoes. And not any old shoes, rather spectacular, black and orange Michael Kors stilettos. Oh the shame!
You see readers I am something of a label freak. It’s something I’ve always had an issue with and I have no idea how it started. But I cannot bear price tags or sticky labels on anything. And dear Gwyneth has pretty much committed the worst possible misdemeanour of all, as in my strange mind, forgetting to take the labels off the bottom of your shoes is almost a mortal sin. But it’s not only footwear labelling that gets me. Those sticky little blighters drive me mad when stuck on
absolutely anything.
I have to confess, I peel labels off everything and anything: clothing, toiletries, books and most importantly to me, food. Over the years I have just about managed to stop myself taking labels off things that go into a cupboard, eg tins and bread. But I do still have a real problem with food in the fridge, and I have wasted many an hour taking price labels off things like yoghurts, milk and packets of ham. However, the worst thing of all for me is fruit and veg. I find it completely impossible to live with any piece of fresh food with a sticker on it. And it doesn’t matter whether the label is stuck to an edible piece of the food or not. I just can’t bear it being there.
Now, this weird affliction of mine has caused both great aggravation and much amusement to people with whom I have a shared a home with over the years. In particular it used to give great delight to my dear sister during our flat sharing years One of her favourite games was to put apples in the fruit bowl with their little stickers still on them and wait to see how long it would take me to notice they were there. I would try really hard to ignore them, but I wouldn’t last long, I’d just have to get up from whatever I was doing to go and peel them all off. Mad, I know!
So I admit it, I have a small, hardly visible, not overly life affecting, glimmer of a touch of OCD. And I do have some other symptoms too: Everything in my home has its place and I can’t bear untidiness, I have to have things in certain places on the shelves in the fridge and my tins (with their labels still on) have to be in height order in the cupboard.
I know I probably sound strange and I may have shared just a little too much of myself, but hopefully you now understand why I am deeply saddened at Gwyneth’s lack of attention to detail in this major wardrobe malfunction. So dear friends of Ealing, join me in my quest. Peel off those labels, unstick those stickers, take off those tags and just for me, please don’t do a Gwynie.
NOTE TO SELF: Don’t listen to Jessie J – remember the price tag!
