So yesterday was the official start date of a project I’ll be working on for the next week or so. Several steps of this project require me to have access for testing purposes to a particular piece of technological gadgetry which I do not own, so I arranged with their internal project manager to borrow one of these widgets for the duration.

This lovely, charming, but geographically challenged man is local to me, and so offered to drop the magical bag of telephony tricks directly to my door. As I am notoriously lazy, notoriously exhausted, and a rumoured agoraphobe (I’m not afraid to leave the house or anything, I just very rarely do), this sounded like a marvellous idea to me and I immediately gave him my address and directions.

“On Blarney Street, off Shandon Street, just past the post office.”

He promised to call me when he was on his way, and I crashed into the duvet and slept like the dead.

When the phone rang four hours later, I was still asleep and in a state of what might be best described as train wreck. My plan was to ignore the fact I was clad in my PJs and just brush my teeth, open the door, thank the nice man, and go back to bed. This plan was going roaringly well until he rang again to ask “Where are you? I’m at the post office.”

I stepped outside my door on the cordless to ask if he could see me, since I live mere steps away. Needless to say, he couldn’t, and after a bit of faffing we determined that he was: a) at the wrong post office; b) parked, and c) wandering around Shandon Street.

Make a note for future reference: most plans devised on four hours of sleep and no coffee have flaws. Tragically, at this critical juncture I was simply not awake enough to remember this.

“Right,” I said, “I’ll walk down the hill, you walk up the hill, and we’ll bump into each other in about two minutes.”

And so I did. I walked out in exactly what I was wearing, which was:

• Light pink pyjama bottoms with huge bright pink stars;
• A ratty Disney World sweatshirt circa 2000, complete with one hole and a bleach stain;
• Freshly washed hair, which I had kipped on whilst wet, and was now perfectly straight on the half I’d slept on and wonderfully curly on the side that had air dried.

I hurried, at some pace, down the hill. Past the post office. Past the school. Past the car dealership. Past everything, in fact, right down to Shandon Street. With each landmark I passed, the absolute humiliation of this sartorial parade of mine became ever more excruciating. The Yummy Mummys queued up for 3 PM pick-up looked every bit as horrified to see me as I was to see them; no doubt they thought this completely insane looking bag lady was going to make off with a complete matching set of Little Tarquins. Carriages were clamped. Babies were clutched. Children were told to avert their eyes.

As if all of this were not bad enough, it goes without saying that I never found him. And so back up the hill with me: past the garage, past the post office, and past the ladies who were now absolutely convinced I was a an unmedicated menace to society and stalking their offspring.

Finally back at home, the phone rang, a car drove up, and kit was delivered. I went back to bed and vowed to never, ever leave the house again.

Agoraphobia: it’s a plan.