Saturday 14th December 2002: Assorted Curiosities
Right. For once, I’ve got a topic lined up for this weekend. It’s even topical! But first, let me regail you with a tale of the surreal happenings that are all around us if we only look. Or hey, maybe they’re in my head. From my point of view, they’re just about the same thing.
So, on Thursday evening, I’m hanging around at a local secondary school (where I’m playing in a band; not even I enjoy the ambience of Local Government Funded Grey walls and Oh God, We’re Cheerful coloured displays), waiting for some bastard to finish taking a 30-minute dump and let me into the goddamn bathroom, which is just a single stall, not a block.
Uneventful, you might think. Dull, even. But you’d be wrong. You see, it’s just then that I notice that whilst I’ve been hanging around here, for all appearances three people have entered, and not one exited. I look down the corridor, but there’s nobody coming. Clearly if these people are trying to escape the building through the bathroom window, they’re making a good job of it. I hesitate to try going in, as there are only so many activities that involve three people in a bathroom, and I’m not sure I’d be welcome witnessing any of them.
It turns out that my apprehension was well placed, as shortly afterwards, I hear furtive conversation coming from within. I creep closer to the door; this, I think, could be update-worthy material! Perhaps they’re secret agents, meeting in the least likely place! Or, y’know, perhaps they’re celebrities having an interesting time, and I can sell my story to a major national newspaper. Though come to think of it, "Celebrity Bog Threesome! Pimply Nerd Tells All!" probably wouldn’t shift too many copies of The Sunday Sport.
However, God’s not on my side today, and it shortly becomes clear that these two toilet-dwellers are in fact discussing their pay packets.
That’s not a metaphor, they’re actually comparing earnings, and, it would seem, one is trying to wrangle more money from the other. Here’s what it sounds like:
MAN 1: Look, it’s not like I get paid a lot either. We just can’t afford it.
MAN 2: How much do you get?
MAN 1: £28,000, plus bonuses.
MAN 2: Come on, we get almost half that. We need 17% at least to pay cost of living.
MAN 1: I said we can’t afford it. The most we can do is 5%.
MAN 2: Oh come on, I know you’ve more than that.
MAN 1: Look, I’ll discuss this later.
Now what the fuck is happening? Is this perhaps the rich-person equivalent of foreplay? (In which case, I could still sell my soul to the tabloids! Woo!) Or perhaps this is where plumbers meet to discuss business? Maybe there’s a whole underground lair down there, disguised as a pipe with shit in it. Or perhaps some unfortunate guy’s walked in on someone taking a crap, and is trying to make polite conversation as he frantically fumbles for the door handle behind his back?
My musings are cut short as their conversation ends, and it sounds like one or both are moving out. I walk down the corridor a little way, and try to look like I’m supposed to be here. Which of course I am, but I always look like I’m lingering with intent in any case.
Now this is where things take a turn for the surreal, as the door flies open, and a middle-aged woman exits rapidly, looking flustered and muttering something at me about how there’s a new Andrex behind the door. When she’s gone, I walk in, and look around, but my search yields no cowering suits, nor any other living creatures. Now what the fuck just happened? I’m left with three options:
1. My inner mind is rather disturbed, and fantasises about the furtive comparing of incomes.
2. This woman is in fact one of the pod people, and is capable of splitting down the middle to become two argumentative plumbers, and vice versa.
3. There is in fact a secret hideout buried beneath the floorboards, which quite possibly conceals the local branch of MI6, which would be quite cool.
I’m torn between a desire to turn myself in at the New Bedlam Home for the Emotionally Interesting, chase after the woman with an array of armaments, and quietly remove the fixtures in an attempt to get myself shot by real authentic spies. On further consideration, I decide that all three options are likely to end the same way, and make for the Home, but am distracted by a rather interesting billboard advertising the Peugeot 306, and forget about the whole affair, until today.
Interesting, no? Oh, hang on, I had a topic in mind when I started recounting this little lot. Um.
Erm. Well, don’t I just look stupid.
[As you can tell, I'm getting better at these endings. Shuddering, crunching halts are slowly becoming my trademark to my three readers.]