To ask if you’ve ever bought something ridiculous as an “emergency”?

[5YearsLeft]

Lighthearted.

I’ve not owned house slippers for years as an expat in warmer areas. However, now I’m back in the UK for part of the year hopefully and… Autumn? Spiders? I don’t remember this? I shouldn’t have ignored all those MN threads.

I get up every night due to pain. Twice now, I’ve seen a dark mark on the floor, shined my phone light on it, and it was a moderate-to-enormous-sized spider, waiting to get under my bare foot and/or scare me to death (which I admit, is my fault, not the spider’s). When I told the friend I’m staying with, he just NONCHALANTLY told me yes, in autumn, despite the lack of pampas grass out front, all the houses in the country become swingers’ mansions for spiders.

Also, I mean, not to get philosophical, but if they live somewhere else, and then they come here where there’s a danger of being in “public” and getting caught, does that mean that doing it in a human house is the spider equivalent of dogging?

Obviously I ordered emergency slippers for this obvious emergency. But I feel like a complete arse telling anyone that I ordered “emergency” house slippers… and I will NEVER tell how long I took picking them out (I take muuuch longer to decide whether something is worth an extra £5 than I used to).

SO. What lighthearted thing have you ordered, or gone out to buy, due to a sudden “emergency,” that you’d prefer no one ever know about?

VOTING

YABU - Slippers are magical and it’s your own fault for not already having some. You deserve a spider stand-off at 2am.

YANBU - Say less. My emergencies have smaller emergencies as pets; it’s the main reason I have Amazon Prime.

My house is currently full of huge spiders. I have a large rescue dog who barks and growls at most perceived threats (visitors, passers by, horses, crows, some other dogs etc- we are seeing a behaviourist) and tries to eat most smaller animals/insects (mice, flies, bees). You would imagine spiders would either be scared away or killed. No- he runs away and hides in a corner or behind me. Maybe I need to swap him for a kitten!

I used to always keep a packet of trifle sponges in the cupboard in case I had to make a short notice emergency trifle.

I love the idea of an emergency trifle!

So @CMOTDibbler

.... emergency chicken jumper, you say..?

We had a 24 hour flight delay at Orlando airport.
We all came back in Disney underwear. Apart from DH, the only place that sold mens underwear was a shop that only sold stuff made from Bamboo. His knickers cost £25 for one pair and I think £30 for 3 pairs of socks. Fortunately Virgin reimbursed us without quibble.

@DuploTrain I don't have emergency spider slippers, but I DO have emergency slug slippers. A few times a month, I get up at 0430. It turns out that this is prime slug time in our kitchen. My foot encountered one just a few weeks back...thankfully it was a foot with a slipper😳

Edited to add that these were bought in a hurry when the last lot wore out, as I knew that I was at high risk without them!

On my way to a 5* hotel resort (for the first time in my life) I panicked about not packing enough towels and spent £25 on the last one that the nearest shop had. Arrived to find our suite was not only replete with towels but they give you a dozen more in the onsite pool and spa 🤨

I have emergency food, could feed half the the street (200 odd houses plus large apartment complexes!) I'm actually not as bad now since I moved but in my former marital home at lockdown I had 36 cans of tomatoes and 13kg pasta before going to the shops to stock up (dd texted me to tell me not to buy any more!) I also had dozen packets of painkillers and we don't have chronic pain conditions. I'm so bad at food hoarding

We have some real monsters roaming around just now too- it’s the season!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2018/sep/22/stephen-collins-on-spiders-cartoon

But @RicherThanYews I have never taken towels to any hotel, is that a thing? Don't all hotels provide them?

@gogomoto it was my first time in a proper hotel, I had literally never been anywhere ever. Apart from Butlins, they only give you a hand towel. Single. For a week.

@Theraffarian

I have an emergency foil blanket and plastic poncho combo pack I keep at the bottom of my back pack ... one day it could save a life (not kidding, have friend who is an emergency rescuer)

Son threw up all over his clothes (top and trousers) when we were on a motorway 3 hours from home. Pulled into some services and ended up buying him a wetsuit to wear! No regular clothes available. In fairness - he did get use of the wetsuit throughout the summer when we went to the beach!

Our larder fridge broke down in 2020. I ordered a replacement, and it was 3 months before they got it in stock!

Going abroad once-got to Gatwick and my husband realised he'd left his electric shaver at home. Had to buy one in duty-free. (He already had a safety razor with him, but had very strong stubble; and if he used it twice in a day his skin got very sore. So it was safety razor in the morning, and electric razor before we went out in the evening)

Ha! I do this all year round.

I once had to order an emergency helicopter from Air Harrods for a client.

He was actually a very down to earth (lol) bloke, but needed to get somewhere very quickly, and they were the only available provider.

Wasn't my usual day in the office.

We used to have one called Bernadette that spent six months above our fireplace before it fell down dead one day. I think it was a false widow.

My daughter cried.

Me too! Although ours was a rescue from Cats Protection. Still cost me £100 though!

You are all too, too wonderful. True, perhaps @CMOTDibbler ’s England Rugby themed emergency chicken jumper isn’t what I thought we’d get to when I started the thread, but I think it’s stolen all of our hearts. I think the mention of emergency M&S bread and butter puddings by @MrsSkylerWhite is a good runner up. But so many tales of emergency shorts, shirts, budgie smuggler vending machine, urgent use of charity shops, holiday nightmares, someone who is without their suitcase RIGHT NOW (so definitely no special spider slippers with her, poor thing), and so on. Also, how many foil blankets, people?!?! Did we all fall for the same advert?

Speaking of horror… my special spider slippers!!! They were supposed to be delivered today and I got a bloody email from bloody Amazon that my “package will be delayed a day or two” and the equivalent of “we’re, like, super sorry.” Im going to post pictures of spiders as my review for the slippers. “This is what I needed the slippers for, but they didn’t arrive for days.”

Some comments:
@dankfarrik I’m glad you understand the emergency nature of the problem.
@DuploTrain You… you don’t know about the special spider slippers? Also, and I know this sounds insane, but I just want my feet protected until I can’t see the spider again. I don’t WANT to kill it. Sigh. I’ve been working on my fear, and this is as far as I’ve gotten: the spiders I don’t see cease to exist and therefore are not frightening.
@HunterHearstHelmsley I hope this isn’t said in sarcasm, MADAM, as you have no idea how delectable my feet are to a spider. Harrumph. How incredibly judgmental.

Sandals for my DD. We went to Italy every year and it always coincided with a growth spurt. And if they didn’t get too small overnight, they were too hot and plasticky for Italian summer. Although the first 2 days they seemed fine! DD to this day has blister plasters in her passport cover.

I went for an interview and by the time I got there, the weather turned, I had goosebumps and blue lips I was so cold. So I nipped into H&M and got a black cardigan. And a lipstick in boots 😂.

@FFSWhatToDoNow me too 😂

Emergency trifle 🤩

On a day trip to a big lake, dd fell over and got a nose bleed, panicked at the blood and threw up all over herself. She was fine and happily played in the lake in her pants but we were going to have a long walk home after so dh went to the only nearby village to find her some emergency spare clothes.
The village was tiny and he returned with a womens cagoule and some adult compression support tights.
She looked like a wet weather Nora Batty but she found it quite funny.

You don't get the full glory of the jumper here, but here is said chicken in her jumper