Category: Meander

Driving up (pay careful attention to the upness) the hill into work on Friday, I rounded a corner to see a van driving along in front of me with one of its back doors open. One of those big cotton reels of cable (about two or three feet across) had fallen out of the back and was chasing the van along. The driver drove on, oblivious.

Much as I yearn for the comically satisfying realisation of the dream of a big heavy thing rolling down a hill, mowing down cars, I decided to do my hero act. I drove up as close as I could behind the big cotton reel, so that when it lost momentum and started to roll back down, it wouldn’t have far to go until my bumper caught it. I carried this out with great aplomb, and there is just a tiny scratch on my bumper as a result.

There was quite a crowd too, but I don’t know how much they saw. I didn’t get a round of applause, which I am quite pissed off about.

Holding my shopping basket in my right hand, I slowly rotated clockwise.

My basket met resistance – something solid.

As I looked down to investigate what I had bumped into that had not been there a second ago, I saw a small blonde girl dropping towards the floor.

She started to cry, and continued to cry for a long time. I hung around, trying to make apologetic faces at her, in the hope that she would see that there was no harm intended, and she no longer had to continue this wailing fit.

She fixed me with a steely glare from the shoulder of her mother, and continued to bawl defiantly.

I then beckoned Karen over, climbed onto her shoulder, and cried right back at her.

Triumphantly, I smacked her again with the basket.

A good day, when all is said and done.

It was some sort of school open day. I was wandering around in my school uniform. I’m sure I was supposed to be doing something important, but for some reason I was passing by the Main Hall.

The school was built on a gentle slope. There were two ways into the Main Hall, both involving descending a flight of about eight narrow steps. The alternative was to go around the outside of the school and through the Fire Exit. That was the official wheelchair access to the Main Hall.

At the top of one of these flights of steps was a man in a wheelchair. He may have had a white pony tail.

Until I hit about 16 and started going to the gym, I was never a particularly beefy kid. I was the lanky one whose arms were widest at the elbow. Yet somehow I felt obliged to help this man in a wheelchair, who was aligned perfectly with these steps, staring longingly ahead. I offered my services, and the fool accepted. Evidently I gave the impression that I had done something like this before, and was a qualified wheelchair handler.

I co-opted the services of another kid. He was a couple of years younger than me, and not really a wise choice. He was short and round, and was probably the only person in the school with less muscular fortitude than myself. I think he had some sort of chronic heart problem, and had spent half of his life in hospital.

I took the handlebars, and other kid took the front of the wheelchair to stabilise it. At this point things went downhill.

The intention was to drop by one step at a time, allowing the large rear wheels to fall into the right angle formed by the step and riser. I know now that I should have kept the centre of gravity between the two points of contact. I didn’t know this at the time.

The chair pitched forwards sharply. Other kid was powerless, and watched as the man’s face passed him by. At no point did he even touch this wheelchair. I immediately transferred all of my energies to pulling this wheelchair back, to hold it in place. Perhaps I could have held it, but probably not.

Things could have been really bad, I suppose. The wheelchair could have rolled down the stairs like O J Simpson did in the Naked Gun, and at the bottom either the guy would have fallen forwards out of it, or sat there giving me evil eyes. But I guess my name was at the top of the Miracle Allocation Register that day, and from nowhere a member of staff appeared in front of me and substituted himself in place of Other Kid.

Stability returned. The man in the wheelchair made it safely to the bottom.

EPILOGUE: Later in the evening, I bumped into the man in the wheelchair again. I sheepishly smiled apologetically. He beamed back, and I felt a lot better.

Every six months I remember this incident, and bite my fist in anguish. Maybe now I’ve shared it, I can finally be free of my burden.

In order to avoid an embarrassment similar to yesterday, I was ultra-special-uber-careful to have a nice clean, smooth shave this morning.

Feeling invincible on my way out, I leant into the bathroom to wish the chick a good day, where I found her brushing her teeth. Some toothpaste was dribbling seductively out of her mouth, so I picked a bit up on my finger and licked it sexily with my poutiest eyes.

My first thought was “Hmmmm. Toothpaste manufacturers seem to be bucking the trend of loading their wares up with oodles of mint, as this one doesn’t taste very minty at all.”

Thought two was “Actually, there’s not even a hint of mint.”

My third thought, the one entitled “This isn’t toothpaste at all, is it?” was duly externalised through my mouth.

She shook her head, rubbed in the rest of her moisturising cream, and continued to brush her teeth.

Halfway up the street I barfed all over a toad ((not really)).

My sister is giving me the cold shoulder.

I turned around and saw her holding my diary. I enquired as to whether she had been reading it.

She threw it at me and told me to fuck off. She stormed out of the room.

Yes, she is on the blob ((Yes, it’s not the most politically correct term ever. Stop disturbing me mid-rant with your sensitivities.)). How did you guess?

I’m really looking forward to spending this evening in the pub with her. Much as I look forward to incontinence in my twilight years.

One of the soap dispensers in the toilets here seems to have been overfilled, and is currently oozing pink goo into a puddle on the floor.

It’s like a scene from Ghostbusters.

As I was leaving the toilets, there was a man stood at the urinal, taking a piss. So I clutched at the towel dispenser behind him very noisily with the maximum of fuss, and listened as the flow of urine stopped.

Poor guy. It’s not his fault that I stepped into his life today, if only for a second. But if I want to make a reputation for myself as a despot, I have to start somewhere. And I haven’t really progressed much since the days when I used to play the bad guy in the school plays, so it needs brushing up on.

With ten minutes until 9am, I pulled up to the front of the supermarket looking for a quick operation. In, grab breakfast, out. No fuss. All four parent-and-child spaces were vacant – the whole car park, in fact, was reasonably quiet. So I flicked the steering wheel to the left, grabbed the handbrake, and executed a beautiful slide sideways into one of the four parent-and-child spacesyes, this is a lie. Well done for spotting that.

As the tyre smoke cleared, an old boy (60, perhaps?) walked past my front end, either admiring my beautiful custom front radiator grille, or noting down my registration.

Five minutes later, the old boy would have gone up to the customer service desk in the supermarket, and helpfully informed them that some young scallywag driving a Golf with the registration XXXX XXX was abusing their facilities.

The customer services desk, obviously, would be horrified. What if four single mothers turned up at once, and all insisted on a space by the front door? That would not suffice. Have they any clamps? No. Then they must phone the police, trace the car registered XXXX XXX and commence court proceedings.

What probably ACTUALLY happened was that this guy went up to the customer services desk and helpfully informed them of the atrocity taking place on their asphalt. To which a middle aged blonde woman who had been working since 7am and had already had to cope with two screaming babies and a smashed jar of beetroot would grab this old codger by the lapels, pull his face close to hers, and spit at him “I. Don’t. Fucking. Care.”

I think I’m just veiling my fear of prosecution with a sheen of humour. I’m quaking on the inside.

I was just a few metres from home, really. It was dark, as it is now. I was thinking about what needs doing this evening, as one does on the way home.

A strange creature was coming the other way, up the opposite pavement. Like a dog, but with a feline demeanour.

It paused outside a driveway, looked at me as if to say “I’m not a big cat, you chuffing idiot! I’m a fox!”

“Right,” I said “A fox. Well, I’ll see you around sometime then.”

The fox rolled its eyes and turned into the driveway.