by Tim Collins
I felt obliged to read every section of the paper after paying for it twice, when all I’d really wanted was the crossword and the TV guide. So I lost half my morning and most of my change as a result of trying to help the environment.
I hope the environment realizes I’m expecting the favour to be returned soon. It could start by striking the corner shop with lightning.
I just had an enjoyable evening of going through my spam emails. Every time I click on ‘spam’ to see if an actual email has ended up there by mistake, I’m confronted with a bizarre menu of mankind’s unspoken longings. It appears we’d all like larger wangs and a bucket of Viagra so we could ‘experience pleasure like never before’. Then we’d like to buy genuine Rolex watches at knockdown prices and gamble the money we’ve saved in online casinos. We’d like to look younger, lose weight and be awarded fully recognized degrees based on our current knowledge and life experience. Then we’d like long-lost relatives, Nigerian princes and heads of Chinese banks to transfer millions of dollars into our bank accounts.
Someone somewhere is clicking on this stuff. There are people out there thinking, ‘You say you want to give me some free money, eh? Tell me more.’ And these people have bank accounts.
If I were a billionaire I’d pretend to be a Nigerian prince and email random people to ask for their bank details. If anyone ever gave me them, I’d transfer a million quid into their account right away. It would make one gullible idiot very happy and everyone else in the world feel like they’d spent their lives discarding genuine opportunities for wealth.
MONDAY 25TH MARCH
We won the pitch! Hooray! That means I’ll have to do more work. Boo. I must try and make our presentations crapper in future. I want the company to win enough business to keep going, but not so much that I have to stay until nine every night.
Josh took us all to the pub for champagne after work. I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to Jo, as she was sitting down the other end of the table, while I was stuck talking about the pitch with Jen and Josh.
I didn’t say much because I knew my voice would take on a sarcastic tone just to spite me, and I didn’t want to upset Josh and Jen. I don’t really know why. They were drinking champagne and braying at the tops of their voices. I should have been annoyed, but they were so excited about winning the business I actually felt pleased for them. I must be going soft.
Jo left after a couple of hours and I said I’d walk her to the tube. We passed the Red Lion and I asked her if she fancied something to eat. I must have been feeling courageous after all that champagne.
I was expecting bar snacks, but it seems that the Red Lion has been turned into a gastro pub. The silent old men with their pints of stout have been replaced by smart couples drinking wine, the pork scratchings have been replaced by vegetable shavings and the ‘ladies’ and ‘gents’ signs have been replaced by ambiguous squiggles designed to confuse everyone into wetting themselves.
The waiter showed us to a candlelit table and handed out menus with words like ‘confit’, ‘infused’ and ‘jus’ on them. I suddenly realized that we were having an actual, proper date in a posh restaurant. This was it. I’d been gifted another chance after screwing everything up last week.
And it’s a chance I would have done something about if one of Jo’s friends from university hadn’t spotted us.
‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ she said, extending her hand. ‘You must be Jo’s dad.’
And that was it. The chance had gone.
TUESDAY 26TH MARCH
I’m convinced it’s all over now. If there was a remote possibility of anything happening with Jo, last night will have snuffed it out. She can hardly parade a coffin-dodger like me to all her friends. I need to move on and buy a Harley-Davidson or grow a ponytail or whatever else you’re supposed to do when you have your mid-life crisis.
Today Josh told me that Trevor wants me to go in on Monday for an emergency briefing. He said he knew that Monday was a bank holiday, but the TC Waste Solutions account was important, so we’d better play ball.
I’m sure Trevor thinks he’s getting another of his little revenges by dragging me in on a bank holiday. But the joke’s on him, because I hate bank holidays. I’d rather spend the day in his grim office than watching half a Bond movie and failing to lay the decking.
I discovered I didn’t have any food in the house when I got home so I had to call a pizza. I only wanted a small one, but the man said the minimum amount I could spend was ten pounds, so I had to get a medium. Then he said it was only two pounds more to get a large so I might as well get that instead. Then he said it was only a pound more to get garlic bread, potato wedges and a Coke so I might as well get that.
When the delivery boy finally managed to find my flat, he spent so long counting out my change in five-pence pieces that I told him not to bother. I sat down on the sofa, fifteen quid poorer and clutching enough lukewarm food to make Jabba the Hutt undo the top button of his jeans. At least it explains all those oddly shaped people you see waddling around town. They phone up for a pizza, get conned into ordering enough to feed an entire African village and before they know it they’re wearing a smock and driving a mobility scooter.
WEDNESDAY 27TH MARCH
I’ve just been mugged. Sort of.
I was planning to eat my pizza leftovers tonight, but at the last minute I decided I couldn’t face it, so I took a shortcut to the supermarket through the council estate.
As I was passing the adventure playground, a child wearing a matching blue tracksuit and baseball cap asked for 50p to call his mum. I told him that public phone boxes didn’t work any more and that if I gave him 50p he’d only spend it on crisps and glue. The little bastard started snivelling, and said his mum had forgotten to come and fetch him. I don’t know why I was taken in by this performance. I just didn’t think he was old enough to be a criminal. Sometimes even my levels of cynicism and mistrust aren’t high enough for modern life.
Anyway, I was duped and I told him he could use my phone to call his mum. Needless to say, as soon as the little thief’s paws were on the phone, he scarpered off through the playground and into the estate.
I know I should go to the police, but I’m too ashamed to tell them I was mugged by a ten-year-old. I considered calling them anyway and pretending someone much older had stolen it. But what if they caught someone matching my false description and they got sent to prison? I don’t think I could live with that on my conscience.
It’s not losing the phone that’s really pissed me off, though. Graham from IT is in charge of our work phones, so now I’ll have to beg him for a new one.
THURSDAY 28TH MARCH
Graham’s office was even smellier than usual this morning. Takeaway boxes were stacked everywhere, and one of the piles collapsed on to my leg, spilling rancid sweet and sour sauce into my turn-up.
‘I’m assuming you enabled remote wiping?’ Graham said.
‘Er … I’m not sure,’ I replied.
‘I’ll take that as a “no”. But you’ll surely have kept a note of the IMEI?’ he asked.
‘Just remind me…’
Graham sighed. ‘The IMEI, or International Mobile Equipment Identity, is a unique fifteen-digit number that anyone with modicum of intelligence makes a note of when they get a new phone. In the unlikely event that someone is too brain-dead to activate remote wiping, it’s used to disable stolen phones.’
‘I think I might have forgotten,’ I said.
‘Of course you did,’ said Graham. ‘Looks like we’ll just have to proceed using your serial number, which was…’
I shrugged.
Graham shook his head and yanked open the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. ‘You’ve proved yourself incapable of looking after modern technology, so I’m going to make the punishment fit the crime.’
He held up an old-fashioned phone with a keypad. ‘This is the Nokia C1-01. It has no touchscreen. It has no Web access. There are no apps on it. Want t
o access your email on the go? It’s very simple – you can’t. In short, it’s a phone that no self-respecting person would be seen dead with. And as of now, it’s your phone.’
I thanked Graham for his understanding and help and thrust the shameful handset deep into my pocket.
It was reasonably sunny at lunchtime, so everyone from our office complex squashed into the tiny square of grass outside. I’m not sure why I joined them. Summer is one of those things I assume is going to be more pleasant than it actually is. Maybe it’s because the weathermen always say we’ll be ‘basking’ in sunshine.
Or perhaps it’s because I wear exactly the same clothes all year round, so I spend most of the summer carrying my jacket over my arm, with dark patches spreading from my armpits. I just can’t bring myself to wear a T-shirt and shorts. Who knows what it might lead to? I might ‘chillax’. And then I’d have to kill myself.
I was just about to give up my space on the grass when Jen came over to join me, so I had to stay out for the rest of lunch. She lay down to soak up the feeble rays and started going on about how ‘fab’ the sun was. I told her the sun was a big fiery bastard that made my TV harder to see and I couldn’t wait for it to stop bothering me and implode. Jen laughed and called me ‘Grumpy Bear’.
Grumpy Bear? He was one of the Care Bears, wasn’t he? Even relentless negativity reminds Jen of fluffy teddies. It must be horrendous to be her.
At five, everyone went down to the pub to celebrate the start of the Easter break. Jo asked me if I was coming, but I said I needed to get home. I couldn’t tell, but I think she might have been slightly disappointed.
So is that it? Have I stopped making a fool of myself now? I’m surprised. I’d have put money on it ending in humiliation. At least it means she can go and find herself a nice little boyfriend her own age and nobody will ever mistake me for her dad/granddad/Yoda ever again.
FRIDAY 29TH MARCH
Believe it or not, I managed to have some fun on my day off. I was glancing at Facebook this afternoon when an old work acquaintance called Dan posted: ‘Just had a lovely shit.’ I tried to remember if Dan was the sort of person who liked to describe their bowel movements in great detail. I was pretty sure he wasn’t. A couple of minutes later, the post disappeared and another one went up, which read, ‘Sorry about that. Fraped.’
I guessed that ‘fraped’ means someone hacked into his account. This gave me an idea. I clicked on to Brad’s page and scrolled through his details for password clues.
Then I remembered. Sarah had an infallible password system, which involved rearranging your address and date of birth. I was sure she’d have imposed this system on Brad and I was right. I worked out his password and I was in.
This was it. I was a genuine hacker, like those spotty teenagers who get arrested for breaking into the Pentagon computers.
Bradley Sanderson
Confession time: Who else eats paper? I can’t be the only one, can I?
Someone called ‘Sandra Barker’ liked that. Strange girl.
I dialled it up a notch:
Bradley Sanderson
Nobody really gets out of the bath to piss, do they?
Tell the truth...
No responses to that one. Even Sandra Barker wasn’t that weird. Next I tried:
Bradley Sanderson
Just stuck a pube in the office coffee jar. Who will win the pube lottery? It could be you.
Again, there was no response. I wondered if I’d made my fraping too obvious too soon. I deleted the posts and tried a different tack:
Bradley Sanderson changed his relationship status to single.
The first response said, ‘Sorry to hear that. What happened?’ The second said, ‘Hope U R OK.’ I hit the jackpot with the third response, though. It read, ‘To be honest, mate, I think you were spared.’ I ‘liked’ this comment and logged out.
SATURDAY 30TH MARCH
My bathroom tap stopped working today, so I had to call out a plumber. I did a Google search and chose the one nearest to my house. He said he was too busy to come, but miraculously managed to find the time when I offered him an extra twenty quid.
He turned up at 8 p.m. and I showed him to the bathroom. I always find it stressful when tradesmen come round because you’re supposed to call them ‘mate’ but I find it too embarrassing.
‘What’s the problem, mate?’ asked the plumber. He was chewing gum with his mouth open, which was putting me on edge. I just wanted to point the problem out and leave him to do his plumbing.
‘There’s no water coming out of the tap,’ I said. I tried to force out the word ‘mate’ but for some reason I said ‘dude’ instead. I think I must have caught it from Jez.
The builder looked at me in confusion before crouching down and inspecting the tap. He unscrewed a small bit of metal from the end and held it up.
‘Blocked aerator,’ he said. He scraped some dirt out of it with his finger and screwed it back on. The water came out in full flow again. I waited for him to say something about how it wasn’t a proper plumbing job so I didn’t have to pay, but he just looked at me and chewed his gum.
I winced and handed over the cash, including the painful extra twenty. He stuffed the money into his pocket and made his way down the driveway.
‘Thanks,’ I shouted after him.
‘Anytime,’ he said, getting into his van. ‘Party on, dude.’
I tried watching TV tonight. There was a reality show about some stupid people shouting at each other. There was a programme where some celebrities from the eighties were quite rightly tortured for wanting to be famous again. Then there was one of those talent contests judged by talentless idiots who think it’s possible to have a million per cent of something. At least, I think it was a talent contest. The only thing they seemed to be showcasing was their recent personal misfortune. Maybe they’ve cut the performances from these things now and they’re just competing over who has the best sob story.
The picture quality on all this stuff was brilliant, of course. I got so excited when high-definition TV came out that I forgot there’s nothing worth watching any more.
You’ll be able to see all the action in pin-sharp detail, they said. But they forgot to tell us that the action we’d be able to see in pin-sharp detail was a former boyband member eating a kangaroo’s testicle. You’ll believe they’re actually in the room with you, they said. But they forgot to tell us that the person we’d think was in the room with us was a woman spewing into the gutter outside a nightclub.
Thanks a lot, HD. Where were you when man walked on the moon? Where were you when Frost interviewed Nixon? Where were you when Debbie Harry was on Top of the Pops? It’s all well and good being around now, but don’t you think it’s a tad late?
SUNDAY 31ST MARCH
Today is Easter Sunday, which means we’re supposed to eat overpriced chocolate to celebrate Jesus coming back to life. I can’t quite remember the link, but I think it’s something to do with rabbits. I’m pretty sure they explained it at school.
I spent the day unscrewing the ends from all my taps. How can something so simple have caused me so much inconvenience? Why had no one ever told me to do that if a tap stops working? You’d think the guy who put them in might have mentioned it. To be fair, he probably would have done if I hadn’t been hiding so I didn’t have to call him ‘mate’.
This new phone isn’t quite the punishment Graham said it would be. I think I actually prefer it. You don’t have to click on any minuscule icons before making a call. You just press the numbers and then the call button. The camera’s so terrible I never consider getting it out, which means that if I see something interesting like a sunset or motorway pile-up, I can enjoy it without worrying about taking a photo. And best of all, I can’t get emails on it, so I get a proper break from work when I’m away from my computer.
It’s possible that onlookers would point and jeer if I used it on the street, but I hate phoning in public anyway. I’ve had so many train jour
neys ruined by idiots yelling into their phones that I try not to inflict that pain on others. But if I ever had to use it in public, at least I’d know nobody would want to nick it. And that’s a feature Apple will never be able to build into their phones.
MONDAY 1ST APRIL
None of the lights were on in the TC Waste Solutions offices when I arrived, but the door was open.
I made my way through reception and down the murky corridor to Trevor’s office. I wondered if he would be waiting behind one of the filing cabinets, ready to spring out and force a pissy chocolate bar down my throat.
I found Trevor inside his office, inspecting a grey box file.
‘So what was this urgent project?’ I asked.
‘There isn’t one!’ he shouted. ‘April fool!’
I shrugged. I’d forgotten it was April Fools’ Day, but I certainly didn’t mind getting out of another tedious brochure.
‘That wasn’t one of the great April fool jokes, was it?’ I asked.
Trevor lifted an ancient Letts diary out of the box file and flipped through the dusty pages.
‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘April 1st. “Dave Cross told me that Mandy Riley would give me a blowjob if I gave her a pound and said the password ‘Hubba Bubba’. Mandy slapped me and told Mrs Mitchell. Now I have a week of detention.” Was that one of the greats?’
‘It wasn’t bad,’ I said.
Trevor took a diary with flaky yellow pages out of the box. ‘April 1st. “It turns out that today wasn’t a no-uniform day after all. It was just another prank by Dave Cross. I was sent home by Mr Jenkins, but not before Dave had rubbed chalk on the crotch of my birthday jeans.” Was that one of the greats?’
