the adlards

Perhaps rather than being committed I should be committed. It’d be a lot easier day-to-day and life in an institution can’t be that much more weird than what I’ve got now.

Take this evening for instance. I was knackered. I wove through the thousands of police in London and made my way home. Walking towards the house I was accosted (before I’d even got to the front door, mind) by our elderly neighbour brandishing a particularly vicious cross between a garden trowel and a pitchfork. My heart sank. All I wanted was to get inside, kiss my wife and kids, pour a large tequila and get on with whatever I needed to do in order to get to bed feeling I’d done my bit.

She wasn’t wearing her hearing aid (that’s right, this is same neighbour who watches tele without it). One sided conversation at volume ensues with much demonstrative waggling-and-poking-with-intent of the pitchfork:

“HELLO JAMES! (with a cheery smile) I NOTICED THAT THE JOLLY DRAIN’S BLOCKED DOWNSTAIRS!”

(aah, yes, ummm, haven’t got around to that yet)
“Oh, really, which one …”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. YOU KNOW, I’VE POKED IT BUT IT DOESN’T SEEM TO BE EMPTYING!”

(hmmm, hard-as-nails old lady acting plaintive, I’m sure I’m about to be obliged to do something here)
“Well, would you like …”

“I WONDER IF YOU MIGHT HAVE A TRY?” (thrusting now clearly quite smelly pitchfork in my direction with a huge toothy grin)

(What, in my suit, lady, are you nuts?! For the love of God, at least let me get inside and change before my sense of duty forces me to take up your weapon of choice and do battle alongside you.)
Just then she noticed that the overflow drain looked blocked too.

“OH LOOK, I THINK THAT ONE’S BLOCKED TOO. I’LL GO AND POKE THAT ONE AND THEN LEAVE THIS (lethal implement) OUTSIDE YOUR DOOR IF YOU HAVEN’T COME OUT YET.”

I’ll spare you the detail of actually helping her to clean the three drains. Suffice to say the drains are now clean, my neighbour is happily watching the News at Ten, and my life is, of course, complete.

Maybe institutional life wouldn’t be weird enough.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 10:39 pm by james and is filed under Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.