After too many shitty days to count, something nice actually happened today.
More about that later. First, a bit more moaning about my shitty life and how crap it is. After last weeks catalogue of work-based crumminess, I was visited in my office by a co-worker from another department. She�s quite scary, so I�ll call her Scary Co-Worker. Or maybe just Scary. Despite having a very loud bark, she actually doesn�t have much of a bite, so I wasn�t particularly surprised when she invited BF and I to dinner as "you�re always moaning how you havent got any money and you look like you need cheering up".
It was such a sweet invitation (if rather brusquely offered!) but I sooooooo didn�t want to go. I tried to think of some excuse. Scary�s a good cook and we�ve had pleasant, if unremarkable, evenings at her house once or twice in the past. But I was feeling so depressed and crummy and hard done by I just couldn�t face it, so I said I thought we were supposed to be going to look at a car and I�d check with BF and let her know. When I got home I had this conversation with BF
Me: Scary�s invited us to dinner
BF: Oh! How sweet! When?
Me: Tomorrow night
BF: Oh! Well�we havent got much else on.
Me: She thought we might need cheering up.
BF: Oh, she IS kind. We DO need cheering up.
*long pause*
Me: Do you want to go?
BF: NO! HELL, NO!
Me: Hmm. Me neither.
*long pause (with sighing)*
Me: How�re we going to get out of it?
BF: Hmm. Tell her we�ve died.
In the end, I sent a text saying that we WERE going to look at a car and it was quite a long way away so we might not be back in time and anyway it was OUR turn and why didn�t they come to us NEXT weekend blah blah blah. Scary fell for my hideous pile of fibs without a whimper.
So, Saturday last, we DID go to look at a car. I�d found one on the internet which was a three hour drive away, fantastic price, a real bargain. We didn�t go see that one tho. We went to the main dealer about a mile from our house and test-drove one, just so I could get the hang of how it felt.
Backtracking slightly, I have to report the untimely (in that Ive been longing for it since about a week after I bought the bloody thing) and much awaited death of the MondeoShit Machine. It had been making a scary CLANGALANGALANGA noise when the throttle was pressed hard to the floor � ie all the flippin time as, being an automatic it had less torque than Marcel Marceau (aww, fuck off, it�s a GOOD pun) � but I couldn�t get a straight answer as to what was wrong with it from my mechanic who just sucked his breath in through his teeth and said "That could be expensive. Why don�t you get your boyfriend to get you a nice Fiesta". Eventually, Chum had a look at it for me. He lifted the bonnet, said "G�wan then, rev the fucker" and then when I did, said "Woah. Stop." And then went inside and said to BF "If you�ve been letting her drive that thing, then you�re a cunt. She�ll kill herself." Roughly translated from the vernacular, that means, "the big end appears to have gone, it could prove hazardous. I would suggest finding alternative modes of transport as it could be uneconomical to repair."
So now its sitting on our driveway, covered in pigeon shit, looking a bit sorry for itself. Serves it right. I will put it in the Free Ads and see if someone will give me �100 for it. For someone who knows a bit about cars and maybe has a reconditioned Ford engine in their garage, it could be a nice little plodder. Maybe.
Luckily for me, BF had, not a few days previously, driven all the way to Nor-Fucking-Folk and purchased himself a nice shiny Volv0 V7oR. My brother, the scab, had been complicit in this monumental boy-toy type scam, to the extent of sourcing the bloody thing in the first place through his trade connections (he works for B3ntley) and lending BF the trade plates so he could drive it back IF he should decide to buy it. Well, of course he bought it. DUH! After driving half way up the bloody country, there was no way he was going to come back empty handed. We are so skint that even church mice have been known to give us hand-outs, but he bought himself a car. He used some of his ma�s inheritance to pay off some of his debtors get a pimped up orange hearse.
The V70R (metallic bronze, tinted windows, all the gadgets and big enough to take a full touring rig) has replaced his somewhat ancient 940.
Guess who�s driving THAT now?
Yuh-ha. Its like driving around in a fridge-freezer.
But I digress. I have been test driving the lovely Mazd@ RX8. *sighs. And drools slightly in an unattractive way*
I want that car. I deserve that car. If I absolutely HAVE to get any older than my present 39 and three-quarters, then I think that car is suitable payback. I cant afford it and I will probably spin off the road on day one and squish myself into a tree but I want it. I want it soooo much. And I don�t get many treats. My friends are insisting that I buy it, in a "ferchristsake, just HAVE it!" sort of way. My conscience is saying "You could get a perfectly good little runabout for less than �1000. Then you will still have some savings if that lazy-arsed boyfriend of yours doesn�t start bringing home the bacon you have to remain the main breadwinner for a little while longer."
I want it.
I test drove it. BF came too and learned a valuable lesson in the way men and women are treated by car salesmen. I have been driving, pretty much accident-free, for fifteen years. The car was facing away from the street, on a gravel drive at the side of the showroom. The salesman offered to turn it around for me.
Hands up any men out there who�ve had that said to them? BF was still gaping and going "He said�he said�what a fucking CHEEK�he said�!" as we roared off down the street.
Have you ever taken a really big, scary, growly dog for a walk? Then it sees a rabbit, or a postman or something like that? You know that bit where you�re thinking "�MUST�NOT�LET�GO�.OF�LEASH.."? That�s what it feels like to drive a Mazd@ RX8. We drove it out to my office and parked up so we could climb in and out of it and work out if it really IS a four-seater (it is) and how the spooky suicide doors work and stuff like that.
The entire Mazd@ sales force of the whole wide world (and the universe) AND my scabrous brother (who is less scabrous now he�s doing MY evil bidding) are searching for a red one at the right price, in time for my birthday.
So. Dinner with Scary and her BF was averted by a bit of a white lie so BF and I got the train to W!nchester and had a lovely meal in a Nepalese restaurant, just a like a real couple on a real date. I paid. Then we got the train back and we went in the Working Men�s Club where the double whiskys are One-Ninety-Five.
This Saturday, of course, I got my come-uppance for telling a big fat fib to Scary. She and her BF came to dinner. I was dreading it, but we figured they would be gone by 11 and we could start partying on our own afterwards. I deserve a good slap for thinking such bad thoughts about them. They came to dinner, the food was infinitely more fabulous than it deserved to be seeing as how little effort Id put into it, we had a great time, we all got royally plastered and they left at three. Everything that Id carelessly thrown together in a huff (or � oh, the shame � got Jooj and Treacle to make cos I couldn�t be arsed) was dee-lish-oss; lime-dressed shrimp with smoked salmon and melon (the sourish, green one. Charentais? Oh, what fun the girls had with the melon-baller!), Tandoori chicken, garlic roasted new potatoes, green and red salads, and then an eight foot tall banana cream pie and a red fruit salad with cr�me de framboise sauce. I think Im gonna try a bit less hard NEXT time I have friends to dinner too. Dammit, I actually had some FUN!
Next day I got a lovely text from Scary, telling me what a nice time they�d had, leaving me feeling even more crappy that I hadnt wanted them to come. I am a BAD BAD friend.
Back to work today for a bit more of the same old crap. Poor Slave keeps asking if Im OK as Im so fucking miserable all the time. Felt sick and sleepy all day. Im sure its just the stress of the shitty job. I just want to go home and crawl under the duvet from the second I drive into the carpark. Not good.
When I got home, BF was working and then Bing Bong! Up turns the director for the Shakespeare play that Id forgotten Id been cast in, with a script and a rehearsal schedule and all sorts of encouraging words to make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Im playing Regan in King Lear at the *Mumble*Theatre in ChavVille in February. Hooray for me. I know ones not supposed to tootle on one�s own brass section but *whispers* Im really good at Shakespeare and acting and stuff and I love it.
Something to look forward to in a sea of bobbing turds. The next fluffed-up tampon to come drifting my way on this tide of detritus is the Twat Inc Company BBQ and Pool Party, which I must endure tomorrow afternoon. This heinous event stretches over three days so we don�t have to shut the company down and can go in rotas. I am a lovely boss and let Slave and Capt Skiver have first pick of the days. From the posted guest list, I appear to be going on Social Leper Day.
Cant wait.
Later
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