Cucumber Guy

It was a cold morning in early July 2000. I hadn’t intended on getting up at 5am that morning, but a friend called me the previous night and asked, pleaded, and bribed me, to fill in for her at a runway show the next day. I accepted and dragged myself out of bed.

It was only a small consisting of four shows between 10am and 4pm. I had been told to show up early because there was some concern that the clothes wouldn’t fit me, but lucky my body was a carbon copy of my friends and everything fit perfectly. After trying on the clothes I chatted with the other girls, someone gave me a sample of Lolita Lempicka, a perfume that has been my signature scent ever since I first inhaled its intoxicating scent that day. I knew most of the other models from previous shows – four girls in all – so there were no introductions, just catching up and small talk. It’s a strange job being a model. You find yourself becoming close to strangers in a matter of hours because you’re running around franticly wearing only tan coloured g-string backstage.

Best team building exercise ever.

We ate breakfast (yes, models eating and such, how terribly odd) and chatted some more before touching up our makeup and getting into our first outfit. As I went down the runway during the first show I noticed a guy on my left sitting with his friends, out of the corner of my eye I saw that he was eating a cucumber, now, I don’t mean he had a salad and it was cut into small bits, I mean he had a full cucumber and was biting it with glee, licking it like a lollypop and treating it like his lover. I wanted to laugh, but I managed not to, I knew he was just doing it to make me laugh and didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

When I was back in the change room I asked the other girls if they had noticed him, one girl smirked, and another ignored me. I started rambling, calling him a wanker, saying he was married to the cucumber and a carrot was his mistress. I waited for a response. Nothing. I gathered that they hadn’t noticed cucumber guy or were too busy to care. It’s not unusual for someone to act like a complete dildo during public shows. I changed into my next outfit just as the girl who ignored me left to go on the runway, it was then that smirking girl informed me that girl who ignored me was cucumber guy’s girlfriend.

Bugger.

For the rest of the day girl who ignored me kept ignoring me and after the show she gave me a look of death as she left on cucumber guys arm.

I hear they now have cucumber kids and he’s seeing a carrot on the side.