Last week I did some babysitting for a family friend who was having a tough time balancing work and childcare over the summer holidays, and for the entire 4 hours that I was left in charge of two 9 year olds I just couldn't stop thinking about when they'll be gone & I can finally use words like 'dickhead' and 'shit' again. But as soon as they were finally gone, it hit me - I am a complete & utter dickhead for wanting these, quite frankly, adorable kids out of my life so I can go about my daily tirade of bad words. In all honesty, I felt kind of awful. 

Having been on this Earth for 25 years I have now accepted the fact that catcalling happens to pretty much everyone everywhere. I like to still reserve the right to be shocked whenever it happens to me though, probably because I like to be a difficult person. So I continue to be shocked by the fact that I've never once shouted derogatory remarks at a man, yet I live on continuing to have such remarks hurled at me like a bag of unwanted cats in a river. Never in a million years did I think I would be catcalled while alone in my car though.

For many years I have truly believed that if a dictionary definition of the perfect child were to be created, it would have to consist of just one word – Nora.

I spent my childhood being adorable and polite while also mastering the art of never crying or embarrassing my parents, and my youth mostly consisted of listening to heavy metal and wishing I had the guts to be 'cool', all while averaging B’s at school and volunteering to be a Friendly Face. Little did I know that at the age of 18 I would finally be a cool kid, but in a way that would come back to bite me in the ass some 3 years later. Being cool was also going to really, really hurt.