Hello Friends,

It’s come to my attention that messages are like drinks.Therefore when trying to interpret them I think it’s important to note there is a big difference between a ‘message in a bottle,’ as Sting likes to croon, or a ‘message from the bottle.’ as um, I do!

A message in a bottle would mean that when it actually washes up on the shore of the person intended, it is intact, ready to be received. This is opposed to a message from the bottle meaning the lid has been opened, the paper is wet and the ink is running down the page. Not unlike to how I looked as I returned home to my friend’s house at 12:30am on Saturday night.

Then there are messages from a few different bottles combined: one from the original and some from somewhere else, plus some mixer.

This leads us to mixed messages, the cocktail of communication.

When it comes to messages and drinks I am generally a fan of mine coming straight up, but not on the rocks. Actually, after finishing this story you may decide that I am in fact a siren that leads innocent people to crash.

But others are a fan of something sweeter. They want their information diluted so it appears more moreish and its potency less detectable. That way they have 20 before they realise the taste is making them sick.

Then there are those who are just fans of mixing it up, mixing you up and mixing their drinks. They like their brain to be a circus of information swirling around, with their mornings dazed and confused. And so they say a whole lot of stuff mixed in with a whole lot of the opposite.

Like a vodka soda. How much is vodka and how much is soda or is there any vodka to begin with?

I like to call these people MMF (mixed message fiends).

Some of the usual lines are: “I really like you, but I’m not sure.”

I’ve never felt like this before, but I don’t think that’s special. You see in some ways you could say that the message is mixed, but in other ways it’s completely clear.

A + B/C = D

A (I’ve never felt like this before) + B (but I don’t think that’s special) / (I’m confused) = D (snooze!)

Slam your hand down on the alarm clock and go back to sleep. They will wake if they are worth getting up for and only then can you truly decide if it’s a tune that makes you want to get out of bed.

Other times people think silence equals violence with messages (kind of like dating a non-drinker, which isn’t always accurate either). Sometimes people just don’t know what to say and so they say nothing until they do.

This is when you can easily understand what messages you tell yourself. If you think their silence means something bad about you, then the message isn’t mixed and it’s time to do a bit of work on yourself, or consult a clairvoyant (possibly me).

Around Sunday lunchtime as I lay on a rug at my gorgeous friend’s ‘birthday games day picnic’ hungover as sin, I had so many flashbacks I couldn’t rest. Every time I’d close my eyes an electric shot of a message of me from the night before would come to haunt me.

Me talking in mixed tones to people of all faces, of all races, of all interests, of all…oh who I am kidding, I’m not completely sure.

Apparently I found shopping on eBay enthralling, which is what I remembered saying to a girl in a red coat. Umm, I’ve never been on eBay.

I was watching home videos and to me having to watch the show Funniest Home Videos is like being killed with a machete.

And last but not least (let out by a highly embarrassed sigh to my supportive friends) I remembered having my arm around a man dressed in a camouflage costume, saying, “I can’t give you a clairvoyant (FYI the ‘clairvoyant’ is me) reading now, because I’m drunk and can’t connect to the spirit.”

If someone told me this would I think the message was mixed or messed up. Or possibly just maggot! From my own recollection I was connected to the spirit alright. I’d go as far as saying I was filled with ‘the spirit’ type that comes with a slice of lemon and salt.

I would say there wouldn’t have been anything else in my bloodstream except spirit, so how was it possible that I couldn’t connect with it? The spirit and I were one.

Still, apparently I didn’t let that stop me. I can’t actually remember what I said but when he emailed me on the Monday saying he found it great how well I could read him, I felt a little troubled by what the message ‘the spirit’ had given him and me in return.

Was it trying to tell me that Tequila helps me make new friends and enhance any lurking psychic abilities that have been lying above 0.05?

Lucky for me (and him) my friend thought I was getting a little too carried away with my spiritual messages from the bottle so he took me home.

And so he should have after all, he was mixing my drinks!

Email me, Emma-Kate Dobbin
editor@tootstar.com