One Week Down
The first week of my cross-country adventures is done. Wrapped. In the can. I checked out of the hotel yesterday morning and said goodbye to the predictably attractive girl on reception. She had smiled and greeted me each day – leaving and returning – and if I hadn't stayed in countless hotels in the past I might have imagined she was making a pass at me every time – in the same way a psychotically happy person might.
Quick aside – don't tell me hotels don't break equal opportunity laws when hiring public facing staff. Some chains are as bad as certain clothes stores – the people you are ever likely tosee appear to havewalked from amagazine cover shoot. I can't help recalling a Chris Rock stand-up routine where he talked about his first job working in the kitchen of a restaurant – and his confirmation that it's no accident some people are keptout of sight.
Anyway.
After spending several hours pretending to be a clever person I found myself standing outside the office, waiting for a taxi to arrive. After a few minutes a very expensive looking BMW rolled into the car park, and I thought “no way”. I was right. There was a very small lady driving it that had difficulty leaning over to swipe her pass card at the barrier. She must obviously have been very important to have such an ostentatious car. I'm wondering if my preconception that only narcissist male managers drivesuch cars may be wrong.
A few minutes later my taxi did arrive, and nearly ran me over. The taxi was plastered in stickers advertising the name of the company, and was driven bya bald headed man whoappeared to buy most of his clothes from discount sporting goods stores. During our entire journey to the station he didn't stop talking, but it was really my fault for asking him what he thought of Uber (the taxi company startup).
Before long we arrived at Preston station, and I walked onto the platform with a few minutes to spare until the arrival of a Lond0n-bound train. I found a spare seat, fished the Kindle out of my bag, and started watching a movie. A student was fast asleep opposite me, and as we passed through station after station en-route, I wondered if any were “his” station. He suddenly woke after half an hour and asked if I could look after his belongings while he went to the bathroom.
“Where is the bathroom?”
“I have no idea”
He must have found it, because he presently came back, thanked me, and fell asleep again. He had a haircut that looked like the sides had been shaved, but the top had been forgotten – it was obviously by design but made him look like a cartoon character from the Simpsons.
We pulled into Birmingham New Street after about an hour, and the table in front of me was vacated. I did a quick shuffle of seats, and claimed a prized table seat, complete with working plug-socket, and room to spread out. For thirty seconds. The universe apparently laughed at my quiet smugness, and delivered two middle-aged business women onto the train. They sat opposite me at the table and kicked my feet before unfurling laptops, folders, and printouts across 80% of the table. I ended up with a 4” wide strip on my side of the table. They didn't ask, or apologise. As a final land-grab, one of them slid a paper folder past her laptop, until it fell onto what remained of my side of the desk. I let out an audible sigh, and neither of them noticed.
One of the printouts in front of the businesswomen was from a management course they had obviously just attended. The page was titled “How to have difficult conversations with co-workers”. Oh, so perhaps they would be quite good at explaining to me why they had just taken over the entire damn table and kicked my feet without f*cking apologising ?
I tried to switch off and watch my movie, but an enormously overweight Australian woman that had been on the train from the beginning of the journey had found somebody to talk at, and was talking, and talking, and talking. Her voice could probably have been classified under the geneva convention as a sound weapon – you couldn't escape it. She knew everything about everything. She had travelled everywhere in the world. She had also not had any children herself, but had very definite views on the best way to bring children up. Oh how I wanted to shut her up. A scene appeared in my mind where I jammed victoria sponge cake into her mouth mid-sentence, to a round of applause from the rest of the rail carriage.
She talked non-stop for two hours.
I did find an antidote in the end. Amelie. The movie. I had downloaded it earlier in the week but hadn't got around to watching it yet. I plugged my inner ear headphones deep into my ears, turned the volume on the Kindle Fire up, and got sucked into the world of this girl that so many people had told me about. I started grinning during the blind-man scene – it really was like my blog.
Before I knew it, Amelie had found love, and my train was approaching Euston in London. It arrived late due to some idiot or other traspassing on the railway lines, which made the next several parts of my journey something of a sprint.
The London Underground is curiously quiet at night. I'm used to being crammed onto trains during the rush hour to visit client sites in the city – where you have no alternative but to avoid eye contact with people's arm-pits an inch from your nose, or some random girl accidentally falling against you as the train hurtles around corners in the darkness. I quietly took photos of the empty carriages.
Arrival at Paddington was a race against time – texting the children as I ran. If I could catch the train leaving in four minutes, I would be home before bedtime. If I couldn't, our eldest would have to put the younger children to bed. My other half was going to be out at a meeting (because she is involved in everything in the known universe to do with children, schools, and whatever the hell else in town). I made it to the train with seconds to spare, and slumped down with sweat pouring from my brow.
After another change of trains, and a ten minute walk, I arrived at our front door and knocked on it. No answer. Wondering if the children were in “lock down” (don't answer the door or the phone!), I dug my keys out of my bag and wandered in. Younger children were in bed, eldest was in tears, and the house was trashed. The phone rang.
“Why do you never answer your phone?!?”
“It was on silent – I was on the train”
“I've been trying to call you – is she OK?”
“I just walked in – I'll sort everything out”
And so began the rest of my night, which would include throwing half the contents of the fridge away, picking up shoes, socks, cups, plates, and bowls from all over the house, walking to the garage to buy washing up liquid and toilet rolls at nearly 11pm, and trying to tell a tearful 14 year old girl that everybody gets insect bites. Apparently hers were the end of the world.My other half arrived home just in time to see me heading out to buy the toilet rolls, and burst into tears.
Oh – and my other half didn't put the garbage out. Fantastic.
I have to do it all again next week.