Getting Dark Now

I just realised I never posted this. Suspect it's not much good, written as it was in failing light and with failing confidence, but I don't have much else to say at the mo, so thought I may as well post it.


I feel sick.

It's getting dark now.

The house down the road has no lights on.

Well, I say road. It's not a road. It's a track, a rough track with potholes and stones and

What will I do if someone stops? I was just thinking how rubbish it is that nobody has stopped to see why the car is parked half in a ditch late on a Friday night with its hazard warning lights on, but they probably assume I'm a farm worker or some other kind of person who knows what they're doing. They probably can't even see me. For all they know, the car's empty.

And what if someone did stop? What if some bloke loomed up outside. Would I even open the door?

I keep thinking of American Werewolf in London. I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere, in a field, in the rain, in the dark.

I can see a house half a mile away, but its lights aren't on.

Anyway it's all very well bemoaning the bad Samaritans, whizzing by heartlessly in their warm cosy shells. This is the woman who only 15 minutes ago was driving through a perfectly good village, knowing full well she was going to run out of fuel at any momnent, not having a fucking clue where she was, but still preferring to drive in her own cosy shell and hope for a petrol station rather than stop and ask the woman, putting her bin out for the night, which direction to go in.

People don't put their bins out for the night. They might scratch and whine and ask to come back in again.

It's getting really dark now.

Why didn't I stop and ask? I knew how stupid I was being.

I was so pleased when I saw the sign for "Services". But all they had, according to the little icons, was beds and food.

Was I right to come off the motorway?

I feel sick.


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Hello

I did write a big long post about being stuck in a field in the dark in the rain in the middle of nowhere on my own and feeling rather scared, but I was stuck in a field in the dark in the rain in the middle of nowhere on my own and feeling rather scared at the time, and I've only just got home and I'm knackered.

I ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere / Yorkshire. I am an eejit.

It's not the first time.

At least I didn't have a car full of furniture and there weren't any panthers. Or at least, I don't think there were. It was all a bit American Werewolf in London though...


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Bugged

This has been bugging me for ages. It's the fault of the Typing-Everything-Out-Correctly Police and I would like them to please show up right here right now and EXPLAIN THEMSELVES.

So. OK. I want someone to explain to me what's wrong with LOL.

I often read things on t' internet that make me laugh out loud. And I want the writer to know this. But they can't hear me laugh, can't see me smile. So how do I tell them? Yeah, I could write it out in longhand, "that just made me laugh out loud" but why bother when there's a perfectly acceptable shorthand available?

Next thing you'll be telling me I can't write "you'll" or "can't" or "didn't" because I should be writing these things out in full.

THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH ABBREVIATIONS, PEOPLE! THEY'RE VERY USEFUL!

[sulk]

[nothing to do with hormones, btw. nothing at all]


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I LIKE MY BREASTS

Just in case any of you have been lying awake at night worrying about me, here is a copy of an email I just sent to a concerned reader:

"Hi William,

I'm afraid you're missing the point. I LIKE my droopy boobs.

Any woman of my physique and my age who has had children, will have droopage no matter what she does. There's no avoiding it, barring cosmetic surgery. Even when I was a pert young thing, my tits were always capable of holding pencils. It's just the way they are.

Seriously though: Consider the swell and the curve of a full boob that doesn't shoot straight out from the chest in a quest to stab any passers-by in the eye. Is a pendulous breast not a wondrous thing?

It's normal, it's sexy, and there is NO NEED for any of us to jump through hoops and waste valuable time and money trying to correct something which shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

Thanks for spending the time on emailing me your considered advice. But as you see, it wasn't actually necessary...

Cheers,
Clare."


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Transportmentally Challenged

It wasn't the trolleys, although there were four of them piled high with ten flat-packed furniture items, two double futons, a large rug, fifteen cushions and several bags of assorted tat, and manoeuvring them was slightly awkward.

It wasn't the weather, although driving through dense fog on the motorway in the middle of the night is possibly not the best of ideas, particularly when your passenger hasn't left Manchester for several months, has agoraphobia and has run out of cigarettes.

It wasn't even the decapitation thing. And come to think of it, the fog helped us with that...

You see, we had rather a lot of stuff. And some of it was big stuff. Long stuff. And the car is long, but apparently not quite long enough.

"Maybe I could sit behind you."
"No, I need that space for the futons. Look, we'll just push the seat really far forward."
"OK."
"You won't have much leg room though. And there'll be a flat-pack bookcase in the back of your neck. Is that all right?"
"Yeah. I think so."

But then we were on the road and I realised that if I braked at all suddenly, the seven-foot-long heavy wooden package would come shooting forward and chop Jane's head off. And I would be stranded in the middle of nowhere with a decapitated friend and a car full of blood-stained bookshelves.

But it was very VERY foggy. So I could get away with driving at 40mph, and keeping at least a million miles between me and the car in front.

So, none of that stuff was so bad. No. I think it would all have been fine, if it weren’t for the panther. And the car-not-going thing. Yes, that was a problem too.

Because there we were. Doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. Slow, but fine.

And then I ran out of fuel.

No, I don't mean the thingy went into the red. I mean I ran. Out of. Diesel. In the middle of the night. We thought we were so clever, taking advantage of IKEA’s 12am closing time...

But anyway. Here was I, intrepid adventurer, all ready to venture forth into the black black night, on my own, miles from the nearest garage. Until Jane suggested we ring the AA. Never let anyone tell you agoraphobics don’t have their heads screwed on.

Of course, at that point I didn’t know about the panther.

The AA told us to get out of the car and wait on the other side of the barrier. They didn't know about the panther either. But luckily we decided it was too cold for such nonsense, and they said they’d be at least an hour and a half, and it was the middle of the night for God's sake. And foggy. Did I mention the fog? It was very foggy.

So we stayed in the car.

The policeman who spotted us and stopped to investigate, he knew about the panther. But he didn't tell us straight away. He said if we had a container, he could drive us to the nearest services. I did! I had a fuel can!

I brought it specially. Because I knew running out of juice was a distinct possibility. Not because I had actually checked - that would be silly. No, it's just that I quite often run out.

The policeman said it might help if I look at the gauge more often. And of course I would, it's just that it's only right in front of my eyes and therefore not very noticeable. And this car never runs out because the tank is really really big and the diesel lasts for ever and ever and ever and really it gets so boring when all it ever says is "Full Up" and I feel like an over-enthusiastic aunt with a teapot...

"Do you need more fuel yet, car dear?"
"No."
"Do you need more fuel yet, car dear?"
"No."
"Do you need more fuel yet, car dear?"

Well, after a while you stop bothering to ask, don't you?

Anyway. I had can. For fuel-running-out scenarios such as this.

But I also had a car packed to the gills with stuff. There was not a chink of space left that didn't have a brightly-coloured cushion crammed into it. And guess where the fuel can was?

My mum always says, if you've lost anything... look under things. Several things. Everything.

So we littered the hard shoulder with hard and soft furnishing, just in case a panther should stop by and need a rest, and, eventually, we unearthed a fuel can.

Sadly we forgot about the spout. So when we got to the petrol station we had to make the nice lady unlock the shop so we could buy another can, and despite all that it didn't occur to me to buy cigarettes for poor old Jane who really was coping very well with the whole thing...

And then the policeman told us about the panther. The one that lives in the woods, behind the crash barrier.

But that was OK because we had diesel, we had one-and-a-half containers, we had a policeman covering our backs...

("What will you do if it attacks me?"
"Lock my door and call for help."
"Maybe I could douse it in diesel and set light to it?")

So there I was, nothing between me and a panther but a can of fuel, and then I discovered the central locking, which was broken, which meant the fuel cap wouldn't open...

SOD THAT.

Who knew how easy it is to break into a VW fuel tank? I did it with my bare fingers.

Such is the strength of a woman.


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Broken

It isn't a good feeling when Ally looks at me with such reproach in the morning. Guilt curls me up like salt on a slug. And then the bemusement sets in, as I try to disentangle the muddled and entirely erroneous thought processes that meant I let him oversleep.

I'm still pretty sleepy myself. It's one of those mornings when you can't quite wake up. Maybe that explains what happens next.

I'm not at work. It's a writing day. Ally’s late and I feel bad, so of course I let him have the car.

I, meanwhile, sit down, eat chocolate, try to convince my brain to wake up, tell myself I should do some work. But hang on a minute... something is nagging at me...

OH FUCK! I'm supposed to be in work today!

Oh well, if I set off now I'll only be half an hour late...

OH ARSE! Ally took the car!

Oh well, I'll get a tram. It only takes twice as long. I'll be an hour late. Not the end of the world.

OH PISS! What about the dogs?

Oh well, OK. I'll walk the dogs first. I'll only be 1.5 hours late...

That is, of course, if I don't get on the wrong bus. If I don't get on the wrong bus, stick my nose in a book, sail waaay past rectification point and not realise until I'm halfway there to THE WRONG BLOODY PART OF TOWN...

And where the hell is the best place to get off, bearing in mind that it's the WRONG BLEEDIN’ BUS and my brain has utterly stopped functioning and my little mental map that normally serves me so well has upped and gone walkabout?

Some bastard is benefiting from my absconded facilities. My mental fucking traitorous map is probably sitting right now in some other bugger's head, some idiot who's never been any good at map-reading or navigating, who never went to the trouble of making their own is right now taking advantage of MY MENTAL MAP just because I didn't get enough sleep and my brain is in a mood with me for being an incompetent fool.

Well, all right then. I'll manage quite nicely on my own, thank you. I'll get off at Central St. No, hang on, that means I have to go up there... maybe it would be quicker if I got off at Cross St, cos that would be nearer in this direction, but further in that one... er... Central St then. No, Cross St. No, Central St.

Oh BUGGERY TIT WANK I should get off here! Now! I can go up Whitworth St! No, wait! This is me! I need to get off! Stooooooop...

Oh. Central St it is then.

Blimey, this is a long walk.

Right then. Here I am. On the tram. On my way. Nothing else can go wrong. I'll only be two hours late.

And now, I'm here. Finally here, in the correct train station, just yards away from my desk. Hooray. All I have to do is shuffle into the office, not look anyone in the eye, sit down at my...

Oh. My computer.

Yes, that one. The one sitting on my desk at home.

Maybe...

Maybe if I just sit on the concrete here with my head in my hands, somebody will take pity on me and take me away to a Home for Broken Women. Yes. I'd like that.

"Take pity on a poor broken woman, guv'nor..."


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