The Time of My Life

Standing outside the Slaughtered Lamb a drunk San Franciscan to whom I had lent a lighter invited me to her home town for a holiday.

"What brought you to London?" I didn't particularly want to know but since we would be holidaying together I felt it only polite to ask.

"Well" She replied "I was working...and now...well, I'm kind of here illegally." She said with bravado. What if I was an immigration officer?

"Cool" I replied, I was not sure if I thought this was cool, I mean I didn't think it was uncool, I didn't really have an opinion. "Where were you working before you became an enemy of the state?"

"In a cupcake shop. But I want to study Human Rights at the London School of Economics."
She said earnestly.

"I work for Amnesty." And with that and without any further questions as to the nature of my role or indeed my personality she then begun to introduce me-undeservedly- to her friends as her 'hero'

I then spent a good ten minutes high fiving her once bespectacled friend Max having stolen his glasses. This made the process of high fiving harder because he couldn't see without his glasses and I couldn't see with them. Then after one rather elaborate hi five his glasses were knocked from my face on to the floor and were subsequently repatriated.

Just as we all discussed the finer points of my heroism a man ran out of the pub door.

"Oh my God!" He exclaimed in a slightly comic camp foreign accent "I've just had the time of my life downstairs!"

He was a friend of Max and the San Franciscan. "What happens downstairs?" We asked in unison.

He looked at us as if it was self evident
" Why, it's where people go to have the time of their life of course!" He gushed, still buzzing from having the time of his life.

"Why, it's where people go to have the time of their life of course!" I repeated mimicking his slightly comic camp foreign accent.


He looked down at me with narrowed eyes and said
"Ok, that was a bit racist, but that's ok because I've just had the time of my life."

"This is my friend Nicoli" said the San Franciscan  "He's Greek"
He nodded at me. And then he ran down the road as fast as he could.

Rubbish

My mother went to a series of austere Catholic schools.

Aged four she was shipped off to one such Catholic boarding school. On Tuesdays they had sewing class. My grandmother refused to buy my mother a sewing kit because she believed my mother was too young to handle scissors. 

The nuns were not impressed.

The evil sewing teacher nun said 

-Josephine, go and wait outside for the dustman.

-Why?

Asked my infant mother

-Because you're rubbish and the bin man is coming to collect you.

So every week my mother went and stood  outside waiting for the dustman to collect her. 

He never did. 

Children in suits are creepy

Today I was waiting at the bus stop and along came a child of about 10 in a suit. He was unaccompanied and stern of face. He carried a clip board. 

The suit was shiny and light grey and pin stripped. It was a sunny day, the kind of day where ten year old children should be running around the street, throwing water bombs at passing strangers and not wearing suits.

I'm not sure where he had been, I'm not sure where he was going, but looked like he took life very seriously. 

Much more seriously than me.

I think perhaps he was a tiny business man.

For a moment I considered asking for general life advice.

But then I thought, no, he is ten.

A brief dalliance in delusion

I was sitting in the gym changing room. 

I was alone.

Then I heard a voice...

"Hello? Is anyone there?" 

It was a small American voice, not the voice of a child exactly, more like that of a tiny under-nourished androgynous adult. 

I looked around.

I was still the only person in the room.

I must have imagined it. 

I carried on getting changed.

"Hello" repeated the diminutive Yank.

I looked around. There was DEFINITELY nobody else in the room.

"Is anybody there?" persisted the voice.

"Oh my god." I thought "This is it, it's finally happened, I am hearing voices." 

I looked around once again, I knelt on the floor to check there was no one trapped behind the lockers and to check to see if I could see a borrower (I wish I could say at this point I'm exercising poetic license, but I really did check).

"Hello" The soft voice asked again.

"What should I do?" I pondered "Should I reply? Should I tell one of my friends? I might be on medication for the rest of my life. But no, I can't reply because then that would be to make the voice real."

"Is anyone there?" 

No! The voice was trapped inside my head. 

I sat down on the bench. 

"What if this is the voice I'm always going to hear?" My mind raced with questions  as I continued to be asked if anyone was there "It has a really annoying accent, this is a disaster. I at least wanted a voice with some gravitas, this voice is just whining and a bit shy."

Just as I thought this I lent back on one of the lockers.

The voice sounded again and as it did the locker gently vibrated. 

I quickly looked around and then put my ear to the locker. I was about to say "Hello?" When I realised that the voice was someone's idiot ring tone and not that of a borrower, nor my brain.

That above process lasted around 45 seconds.

So to conclude I'm not actually mad, well only in the respect that I'm not hearing voices, I suppose I might be a bit to believe I actually was, and a little madder still, to briefly consider the possibly that the voice belonged to a Borrower!

Love

A few months ago I was walking round Highbury corner when a man stopped me.

"Hello" He said. "Do you have a boyfriend?" 

"Yes" I replied hurredly, even though this wasn't true.

"I'm not surprised you're very pretty" He lamented.

"Oh well" I said.

"It's a shame you have a boyfriend. If you didn't I would have to take you on a date"

"Ok bye" Said I.

"Such beautiful eyes" He whispered with a dying fall. 

He was a tramp. 

Today I met a Bassett Hound, with ginger eyebrows and a hangdog expression. He was tied to a lamppost. As I approached he wagged his tail and so I bent down patted him on the head and told him he was lovely. He looked embarrassed and I left.

 

I spend approximately 5% of my waking hours and perhaps 10-15% of my dreams considering how much happier my life would be were I to own a dog. I think of Norfolk Terriers, Beagles and Jack Russell's and wonder at the amazing Beagle/Jack Russell cross-bread aka Jacakabee (were I to get one I would obviously name it Sir Derek) but until today I had not considered Bassett Hounds to be a contender. 

But as I walked away from my chance encounter I thought of how happy I would be if only I had a Bassett Hound and so now I'd say they are in with a chance.

I wish people on buses wouldn't whip my face with their dreadlocks.