« Gender specific language; starting them young. | Main | RSPCA and Remembrance Sunday; nothing escapes my wrath... »
November 12, 2005
Utter weirdness...
I had one of those nights on Thursday and I only consumed ONE shot of scotch. I went out you see, I took the bull by the horns and left the house, not only that but it was the second night in a row having been out the previous night to meet this year’s Cambridge NaNo lot. The day trudged along normally, only managed 1,000 words, shouted at the computer a lot, shouted at my characters even more, had to listen to a load of racist bullshit at the school gates, dreamed of living in a little cottage in the middle of absolutely nowhere where I don’t have to interact with anybody unless I want to, plonked kid in front of DVD to tried and get another 1,000 words done, failed, kid refused to eat tea blah blah blah.
At 6:45 my Dad, the babysitter phoned to say that he is terribly sorry and that he knows that I said 7pm at the latest but he is stuck in traffic that is just not moving on the M11 about 20mins from my house and he will get here as soon as he can. I have to calm my Dad down because he is convinced he is about to ruin my night. At 6:47 Mr PE phones me from Cambridge town centre to say that he is awfully sorry and he knows that he was supposed to be getting the last bus from Cambridge to Comberton at 6:45 and meeting me there but he bumped into a mate who bought him several drinks and he lost track of time, so he is going to have to walk there. Roughly what sort of direction should he head?
My Dad trundles through the door at 7:35 extremely stressed and so I do some more calming down. Bearing in mind that my Dad knocked off work an hour early to come and free me for a night out and an hour’s drive has just taken him over two and that he is diabetic and his blood pressure really should be kept at a reasonably normal sort of level, there was absolutely no way I could ask him for a lift to Comberton as I had planned, especially as it was in the same sort of direction from whence he came.
So I phoned for a Taxi, or at least I tried to phone for a taxi. The first one wouldn’t pick up the phone, the second despite having the first three postcode digits EXACTLY the same as mine, insisted that I should try someone more local. The third said that they would be 10-15 minutes and were in fact 20 but who was counting because the doors opened at 8:00 and for at least an hour there was bound to be some sort of support act, because that’s the way gigs work right?
Meanwhile Mr PE is phoning me every 2 1/2 minutes, to let me know that he *thinks* he is heading in the right direction but he wouldn’t know because he is in the middle of nowhere without any indication of civilisation. When I tell the Taxi driver that I am going to Comberton Leisure Centre, he has never heard of the place but Comberton is so small that we agree that he should drop me off at the centre and I will find the place on foot. By the time we get there Mr PE insists that he is walking down the main street of Comberton so our paths should cross any minute now. So I’m standing at a crossroads in what feels like the middle of a ghost town, under a sign that says Comberton and I wait and I wait. He insists he is walking down Barton Road and I’m standing where Barton Road turns into East Road, so if he just keeps walking..... there is a point where we think that perhaps he is not in Comberton at all but oh look there he is at last! He feels it necessary to point out that a) I am standing under a sign that says CAMBRIDGE 5 miles; and b) He has a hole in his pocket and he thinks that 30 quid has escaped at some point during the walk.
So we finally stumble through the doors of Comberton Leisure Centre at 8:45 and get instantly leaped upon by a woman in a power suit who asks if she can help us. So we reply that we have tickets reserved to see Show of Hands, she finds the tickets and announces that they have already started and would we mind waiting until in-between songs before we enter the auditorium? We ask how much we have missed and she replies that they came on at 8pm (as we discover it says on the tickets but of course Muggins here booked the tickets but arranged to pick them up there on the night, rather than having them sent out)
So while we are waiting she asks us if we have come far, to which I reply something along the lines of ‘Only five. It just felt like a million.’ Her snootiness subsides in a swoop and she asks,
‘One of those days?’
To which I mutter something about a babysitter being late and she instantly asks if she can get us a drink on the house as we have had such a terrible evening but then the song finishes and she opens the door and sends us on our way to find a couple of seats, urging us to come and find her at the interval and she will get us those drinks.
What seems about two songs later, the interval arrives and I decide to queue for the ladies while Mr PE gets the drinks in. I have moved forward about two people when he returns with a whiskey, he says he saw the power suited lady but she seemed so busy that he didn’t have the heart to demand the drinks. Mr PE heads off outside for a cigarette because it is a non smoking auditorium and by the time I get to the front of the toilet queue (without wetting myself) I have downed my whiskey in a couple of sips.
What in God’s name can go wrong whilst spending a quick penny? Ask and Purple Elephant shall tell.... So I’ve finished what needs to be done and I turn to yank a little bit of toilet paper and the whole toilet roll holder falls off and comes crashing down on the bridge of my nose. It hurt so much that I was blinded for a second, there in that cubicle with a queue building up outside.
So shall we get this straight? Purple Elephant gets herself blinded by a runaway toilet roll holder on only one shot of whiskey. And yes it does still hurt. Thank you for asking.
The rest of the gig passed without mishap but let’s face it, you can’t really upstage almost breaking your nose on a toilet roll holder, now can you?
Except that the power suited lady was waiting for us on the way out with a bottle of fizzy plonk ’Courtesy of Comberton Leisure Centre.’
I do believe Mr PE gave her a hug.
Posted by purple elephant at November 12, 2005 09:31 AM