“What’s your birthday?” La Redoute asks me.
I type in my birthday - 9 May 1991. “Sorry, that doesn’t match” the web page tells me. Want to answer another question?
Well, technically that is my birthday, I think to myself. But who am I to argue? Especially this close to midnight.
YES, ANOTHER QUESTION,I select. Absolutely must get into the account and place my order before the sale ends at midnight.
“What’s your mother’s maiden name?”
I type in my mother’s maiden name - “Wilman”.
Quite easy to remember, I think to myself, because it’s really quite a lot like her married/ now-not-married-anymore-but-still-her-name name. And also my own last name - Fairman.
“Looks like that’s not right!” La Redoute tells me.
Ok, well. Probably Willman then, twoL’s. I say to La Redoute. I pop the additional L in.
“Whoops! That’s not right either. 18 more goes. After that you’ll be unable to access the account”.
Well, realistically there are at most two possible spellings of Wilman, I think to myself.
Don’t really feel I can text my mum to ask her how to spell her maiden name, after all this time, 32 years of knowing her.
Don’t really feel I have time to drive round to her house, and try to track down a copy of her birth certificate. Not before midnight, anyway.
Is it definitely Wilman? Was she called something before Wilman, I think to myself.
So… let’s not run down the 18 tries on trying another spelling. Let’s give the birthday another go.
10May 1991 then, I try. Easy for the mouse to slip while you’re selecting these things. So many drop downs always. So many days and months and years to pick accidentally. So many spellings of Wilman, so many different names for my mother.
“Ah, no! That’s not it. Try again”, says La Redoute.
Ok, 8may, maybe. Probably miscrolled in that direction.
“Whoops! Not that, no.”
That’s ok, probably I put this years’ year. Instead of the year I was born, 1991, I probably put 2023. Easy mistake to make. I scroll the date drop down over to 9 May 2023.
“That’s not it!” Says La Redoute.
Well, my birthday is 9 May. I think to myself. Isn’t it?
I remember the funny to no one but myself joke I always used to do when people told me their birthday.
Regardless of what day they said I’d respond “oh my god! Same!!”.
“…what? No it’s not, are you being serious? You can’t be serious?” They’d respond, always. A little bit incredulous, sometimes a little bit excited at the coincidence, sometimes a little bit annoyed at the stupidity of the joke.
I was never being serious, I was joking. Unless their birthday was 9 May, then I wouldn’t have been joking.
So… Is my birthday definitely 9 May? Was I serious, my birthday was really, definitely 9 May? I wonder, trying it again in the La Redoute form data fields.
“No! Want to try another question?” Says La Redoute.
OK YES, I select.
“Alright. What’s the name of the first school you went to?” It says.
That one I seriously, definitely have the answer to, I say out loud.
Carlisle, Carlisle school.
“No :)”, says La Redoute.
Just Carlisle then, I respond - I probably wouldn’t have put school.
“It’s not that!” Says La Redoute.
How do you spell the word Carlisle, where is Carlisle and why would a primary school in the Greater London area call itself Carlisle school???? I desperately type into Google.
It turns out it is Carlisle, with the S. but that’s not the answer for La Redoute’s purposes.
I don’t know then, I yell at La Redoute.
“Ok :( that’s fine though, what about the name of your first pet then? The first road you lived on?” it responds.
I had a rabbit and it was called FLOPSY I type in.
And if you don’t like that, I also had 2 rabbits that were definitely mine instead of family pets - so you probably think those are more so my first ever pets than Flopsy was, even though Flopsy was important to me and I wonder what happened to him and how he died.
One was called NIBBLES and one was called FUDGE I type in.
But part of me can’t remember whether they were actually called Fudge and Sugar, or Nibbles and Munchie. I think I kept one of their original born rabbit names, and changed the other.
And I first lived on a road called ORMOND something, I try - after it rejected Flopsy, and Nibbles, and Sugar, and Fudge. Even Munchie, although surely Munchie is too stupid a name for one of them to have actually been called that.
Maybe Ormond ROAD, or Drive, or AVENUE. And maybe that wasn’t the first road I ever lived on, but it’s the one I would’ve been able to remember when I set this account up.
“You’ve used up 7 goes, and Ormond is not a real word so it’s probably impossible that you lived on a road called that :)”, says La Redoute.
10 more goes, and after that I’m locked out for good.
“The year you met your first boyfriend or girlfriend?” It asks me.
How am I meant to remember what level of relationship I considered to be a first boyfriend at the time of setting up my La Redoute account, I ask the website.
Do you mean the first time I fell in love? Or do you mean the first person I went out with for 2 weeks and then asked a friend to dump for me in biology?
What on earth constitutes a boyfriend or girlfriend anyway? I weep. And is Wilman spelt with one L? Or two?
Were they called Nibbles and Fudge?? Or Sugar and Munchie? Where is Carlisle school, surely not in the South East?
And when THE f*ck is my f*cking birthday, I cry out to La Redoute/ God.
“Whoops! That’s not right. Here’s another one” says La Redoute. “What was the location (venue and city/ town) of the first time you ever felt a deep sense of being entirely disconnected from your early family life and history?”
Two more goes - next question: “Why do you think you can’t remember anything about yourself?”
I switch back to the birthday question. This time I try 9 May 2022, and it lets me in to buy the curtains - a tiny little 1 year old dead set of getting a good price on soft furnishings.
It’s 2am now and the sale has ended. I buy the curtains anyway, and make a mental note to remember the colour of the first pair of curtains I ever bought, in case ever called for at some point in the far off future: Lichen.
Good name for a curtain colour, really. Probably also a good name for a rabbit, or a road. Maybe also a good last name for my mum before she was married.
Good answer to a secret question, probably.
