When it happened, I wasn't ready for it. I expected it about as much as I expected to win miss world and be flown around the world and forced to work with screaming kids. And being so awesomely unprepared, i reacted like Scooby Doo chancing upon a ghost. I followed my instinct, which turned out to be hopelessly lost and rubbish at map reading.

Maybe I was too confused to do the right thing. After all, the right thing rarely involves fun and mostly means making the least exciting choice. If we always made the smartest choice, we'd never get laid.

That said, the day it all began, I came close to making a very smart choice. Here it is, bravely scrawled in black ink, in my blue diary.

I am dumping Thomas, tomorrow.

He deserves being called ex-rat after all. He falls several thousand feet below acceptable boyfriend standards. Funny thing is, at the age of five I knew what that was. I was dating the boy across the road and I routinely ate his milk and cookies before embarking on mine. I also tantrumed until he surrendered his Fisher Price wheelie dog. And I refused to play in his room because it smelled of wee. Then I grew up and started taking crap.