Massive space vagina

Around this time last year I thought about buying a new front door. Not because I especially wanted to spend an exorbitant amount of money on such a thing, but rather because I experienced a brief moment of BEHAVING LIKE AN ADULT and thought it would be a wise thing to do; existing front door had never been particularly awesome, y'see, with the 5mm gap between the door and the frame being particularly un-awesome in the winter.

However, as often occurs when I have a brief moment of BEHAVING LIKE AN ADULT, my dominant personality traits kicked in and I spent the money on shiny and exciting new toys instead.

Fast forward one year and I'm jauntily walking down my front path one bright and sunny evening when I notice 'hey-ho, have I always been able to see into my porch even when the door is closed?'

The answer used to be NO. At this point, however, it was in fact a resounding YES.

EPIC DOOR FAIL. Don't believe me? This is it from the inside.

Immediately upon seeing this immense crack in space-time the door the part of my brain that BEHAVES LIKE AN ADULT snapped its fingers to get the attention of the dominant part of my brain that had already started thinking about exciting other things, and sternly said "new door." The dominant part of my brain nodded like a special and immediately set about patching up the door with masking tape and wishful thinking, and then colouring in the masking tape with a black marker pen so it wasn't quite as noticeable as it would be if it was just left the colour of normal masking tape. However, as dominant part of brain is wont too, after a minute or so of colouring in the masking tape it got bored and decided to play Angry Birds HD on the iPad, leaving the door covered in a mish-mash of coloured and uncoloured masking tape that, the next day, both parts of my brain agreed was not a satisfactory solution to the problem at hand.

Gap at top of door, and tastefully arranged, albeit uncoloured, masking tape.

And so like a sulky teenager, the dominant part of my brain caved in and a swanky new front door and industrial-strength frame was ordered.

About five weeks after I placed the order a nice lady called me to say everything was ready and they'd like to come and fit it. A day was arranged, and even the dominant part of my brain was quite excited at the prospect of the new door because it would be shiny and do exciting things like open and close without requiring an excessive tug or a forceful shove.

On the Sunday before the day new door was to be fitted I was in an evening yoga class in the midst of one of the upside down postures when I suddenly realised that workmen expect beverages, and while I was covered on the tea front (regular, Earl Grey, excessively stinky Lapsang Souchong) the only coffee I had in the house was some of that Starbucks instant stuff, and as appreciative as I intended to be toward this chap for exchanging shabby old door for shiny new one, there was no way I was going to let him have one/any of those. And so after class I made a special effort to stop in at the only shop I could find that was open where I paid an exorbitant fee for a comically undersized jar of Nescafe.

I arranged to work from home for the duration of the day new door was to be fitted, because quite frankly I had no idea how long it would take to fit a new door and frame so I thought I'd better play it safe. And because I expected there to be loads of loud noises accompanying the door-fitting process, I decided I'd do a cover design for one of the forthcoming issues. You might ask why an editor is doing a cover design, so lets just say that I like to keep my hand in the photoshoppery pool every now and then, and it's easy enough for me to disengage my brain and make something pretty without having to think. Plus it keeps everyone on their toes if I show I can multi-task the shit out of everything.

While hashing out ideas for the cover design and waiting for doorman to arrive I have to keep talking myself out of a growing urge to put my foot through old door just to see how feeble and rotten it actually is. The only reason I don't is that I'm worried the door company will phone and say the fitter is ill or something and can they rearrange for another day, and then I'll be left with a massive hole in the door that all the masking tape in the world won't be able to fix.

So anyway, doorman arrives promptly at 10:30, and I immediately suppress the urge to ask him if he's OK with me putting my foot through the old door because he looks like the sort of person who would frown upon such behaviour and respond with something like "don't be so stupid." I instead ask him if he'd like a cup of tea or COFFEE. He raises an eyebrow and replies "actually I'd love a glass of water please."

"Not coffee?" I ask again.

"No - water will be fine," he says.

I briefly consider telling him that I'm all out of water and that he'll have to make do with coffee, but I just give up and get him a glass of water. I subsequently resolve to see if I can drink the entire tiny jar of Nescafe myself in the same time it takes him to fit a door.

The old door and it's shabby frame are dispensed with in a frighteningly short period of time, and within an hour all the new bits are coming together nicely, and I'm in the midst of some terrifying Nescafe-induced sweats. Regardless of the fact I'm vibrating more than a Harry Potter broomstick at a teenager's slumber party, the cover is coming along just great. I've created a lovely image that shows a familiar spaceship from a well-know sci-fi show flying toward a beautiful custom-built purple nebula with a vertically-arranged glowing centre; I'm really quite proud of the whole thing, and decide to celebrate with my third or fourth cup of coffee.

So there I am standing in the kitchen and I glance back over towards my computer just at the same moment that door chappy, who is standing in the porch, decides to turn around and look over at my computer. For a minute we stand there in silence, both taking in the breathtaking space vista I've lovingly created. And then we both harrumph a bit, blush, and return to our respective duties, having both realised that what I've created looks just like a massive vagina floating in space with a spaceship about to plunge into it.

However much you might argue the point (and believe me, the dominant part of my brain fought tooth and nail with the part of my brain that BEHAVES LIKE AN ADULT), there's no way I can let a massive space vagina be published, so I scurry back over to my desk, plonk myself down, and begin tickling (oi, careful - that's a design term) the nebula to make it look slightly more, well, nebulous. Regardless of my efforts, by this point in time the dominant part of my brain has dubbed it the Lohan Nebula and is sniggering away in my subconscious like a naughty schoolboy.

New door in place but without the centre panels. My first thought upon seeing it like this was "ooo - forcefield door!"

About an hour later the doorman comes up to me, looks at the somewhat less vaginary image on my screen in a slightly disappointed fashion, and says he's done and would I like him to show me how it works. Obviously by now I'm on about my fifth or sixth cup of coffee and am literally a live-action version of Tweek from South Park. Also, being somewhat loath to leave a workman downstairs in my house while I pop upstairs, I'm desperately in need of the toilet. I nevertheless follow him outside.

So it turns out new doors are considerably more complicated than old doors, and while he's lifting the handle up and turning the key in a variety of complex and exciting ways, I'm being distracted by a neighbour's Hitler cat who is giving me evils from underneath a car, and by the fact that I'm hopping around and squeezing my thighs together in an attempt to not wet myself. I think, though I'm not too sure, that doorman notices I'm not exactly focusing my full attention on his little show and tell display, and toward the end I actually think he's going to tell me to go into my house and offer to lock the door from the outside and pass the key through the letterbox to me just to be on the safe side.

"Did you get all that," he eventually says. I nod. He gets in his van and drives off, and I'm left standing on the lawn thinking 'what?'

New door completed. While new door is considerably more awesome than old door, I do miss being able to use the gigantic cracks in the old one as rudimentary spy holes.

Anyway, I eventually go back inside, manage to lock the door (or at the very least stop it from opening) and subsequently stick my finger in the still-wet mastic around the frame before scampering upstairs to empty approximately two litres of liquid from my painfully-strained bladder. My next action, and the only defence I can offer is that my caffeine-frazzled brain somehow wanted to memorialise my morning's work, was to hop onto Twitter and start furiously tweeting the exciting new trending topic hashtag #massivespacevagina.

Sadly, and somewhat inexplicably I think you'll agree, it has failed to catch on as well as #justinbieber.