My Lobster Flatmate

Lucky only scratches the surface of how I feel about my flatmates.  Back I Arizona last month, I had a mini-panic attack when It occurred to me that I could get stuck in a room with someone who had the TV on all day.  Yes, constant TV was my worst fear, having not watched any for about 12 years.  But now I realize I could have got stuck with flatmates who had way worse issues than TV addictions.  But, I didn't, I got flatmates I love, especially my roommate who I share a bedroom with, Melissa.  My lobster flatmate.

Melissa, Keila, Katie, Me, Hillary

Apparently, being someone's lobster comes from the show Friends--Phoebe talks about how lobsters stick together for life and says Ross and Rachel are one another's lobsters.  Melissa has a house on Cape Cod, and therefore a thing for lobsters.  She also has a boyfriend lobster.  But, as she says multiple times each day, I am her roommate lobster.
Woot! Lucky me.  

Paris.  Oh Paris.

Melissa is a total crack-up, she keeps me laughing all day.  We go to bed about the same time, and she's a hard sleeper, so I don't have to feel guilty about waking her up when I hop out of bed at 5:30 a.m.  We eat out together a lot--it's easy because we both like steak and Pimm's, although we've had fantastic Indian food.  She's converted me to afternoon iced coffee, and I've converted her to Zumba.  Not really.  She won't budge on the Zumba, citing 84 left feet and claiming to pose a danger to others.  Melissa also claims to be the whitest person on earth, but can't really be because her iPod has Jay-Z doing the dirtiest song I have ever heard.

I thought the making of Harry Potter was an amusement park.
It's not really, so we pretending the bus was a roller coaster. 

Melissa andI have really been looking forward to today--we've planned all week to go to Harrods and then back to Camden Locks Market to get fish pedicures.  Melissa had seen this there and was excited to go back, I said I was up for a new experience.

Harrods was fantastic--five floors of designer/luxury goods, from Tiffany engagement rings (one of us tried some on) to 700 pound scarfs, to caviar counters and stacks of pastries.  The center of the store has amazing Egyptian columns and gilded escalators.  I bought presents for the boys in the Qatar section, note books and t-shirts in Arabic (they were 80% off).  The savings on souvenirs was more than spent in the Steakhouse on the food galleries, where they cut the steak to our specifications, grilled it in front of us and served it with creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, gravy, and béarnaise sauce.  Totally worth the pounds (both ways).

So Harrod's was great.  Fish pedicure, not so much.  My lobster really steered me wrong on this one.  I imagine a tranquil pool of water with four goldfish gently caressing my feet.  Instead, it was like an attack of piranhas in a feeding frenzy.  Relaxing fish exfoliating massage, my foot.  It was like torture--a wriggling mass all over my feet--in between the toes was the worst.  I really tried to man up and continue, and after the initial pull-out I did put them back in for a few minutes, but it was intensely awful.  I bailed, but Melissa stayed in for the long haul.  We both agreed we never, ever needed to do that again.

Tomorrow, my lobster and I are off to Dublin for a two-day dip into Ireland.  It was Melissa's idea, but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt--nothing can be as bad as a fish pedicure.