Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista

it for a minute or two, answering the door to my irate upstairs neighbour, Mr Poole, apologising profusely to Mr Poole and finally, when Mr Poole refused to accept my apologies telling Mr Poole to sod off, I got back to the home waxing.
    I grabbed another saucepan from the cupboard and started boiling up my mixture again. I managed to get to the frothy stage, checked whether there were any granules left (there weren’t) and decanted it into a ceramic bowl. The book instructed me to put the mixture into the fridge for AT LEAST fifteen minutes before I used it.
    My phone buzzed again. It was Mrs Bromell, asking if I’d be able to take Paddington out this afternoon. He had a vet’s appointment at three and they really wanted him to go out first. It meant I’d be a bit pushed for time, but I really couldn’t afford to turn the work down. I stuck the sugar wax in the freezer for a couple of minutes. That ought to do it. Then, standing in the kitchen dressed in a bra and nothing else, I got to work. Get the worst over first, I thought, slathering some wax at the top of my inner thigh.
    I screamed. I howled, I hopped around in agony. Too hot, it was too bloody hot! Hoping the people in the apartment block backing onto ours couldn’t see me, I clambered up onto the counter and splashed the scalded area with cold water. There was a banging on the door.
    ‘Could you please keep the noise down in there?’ It was Mr Poole from upstairs. ‘I am trying to work here.’ Jude and I have never been able to figure out exactly what it is Mr Poole does and I was not in the mood to find out.
    ‘Oh, will you just piss off!’ I yelled at the top of my voice. There was a stunned silence from the other side of the door.
    ‘Well, I must say . . .’ I heard him mutter before he stomped off upstairs.
    Oh God oh God. What the hell should I do? It was agony. I couldn’t bring myself to pull the strip of linen off, convinced that if I did it would take three layers of skin with it. What to do? Araminta, the stupid bloody Less is More! woman did not give advice on how to deal with third-degree burns as a result of home sugar waxing, so I called NHS Direct.
    In between bouts of barely stifled laughter, the woman on the other end of the line told me that I needed to get to Accident & Emergency as soon as possible. Would I be justified in calling an ambulance? I asked her. No, she didn’t think so.
    ‘If you can’t face public transport, get a minicab, love.’
    Economy drive or no economy drive, there was no way I was going to get on the tube in that state. I rang our local car service, pulled on some tracksuit bottoms using extreme care, donned a long coat and trainers and made my way gingerly down the stairs to the cab. I lowered myself onto the back seat and we set off towards St Thomas’s. The taxi cost £9. I handed over a tenner and waited for my change. Sighing dramatically, the driver handed back my pound. Now marked as a non-tipper, I was going to have to change minicab firms.
    In A&E, I explained my situation in hushed tones to the woman on the reception desk. She kept a straight face throughout and even managed to sound sympathetic.
    ‘That must be very painful,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best to get someone to see you as soon as possible.’
    Unable to sit down with any comfort, I stood by the window of the waiting room and, ignoring the prominent ‘ No Mobile Phones ’ signs, rang Mrs Bromell to cancel Paddington. She sounded pained. Not as pained as I was. Then, in dire need of some hand-holding, I rang Jude. There was no answer from her phone. I looked at my watch. It was after four thirty. The market had closed. I rang Ali. She was still in the office, but she took the call.
    ‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘Sounds like you’re in a train station. Are you going somewhere?’
    I told her the whole sorry tale. When she had stopped crying with laughter, she said,
    ‘God bless you, Cassandra Cavanagh, that is the funniest thing – the only funny thing, in fact – that I have heard in about a month.’
    ‘Very pleased I could be of service,’ I grumbled, but it was lovely to hear her laugh like that again.
    ‘Stay put,’ she said. Not that I had much choice. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
    A minute later, a nurse came to call me through to the treatment area.
    The nurse, a jovial South African lady called Josephine with a dazzling smile and enormous bosom, instructed me to slip off my clothes, put