Mrs Marchmount discovers dating is difficult

After such a thoroughly miserable weekend (of which I felt there was no highlight, just a long series of low-lights) I awoke contemplating resignation.  I have known and worked with Janice for much of my working life, but somehow she seems to be drifting away, and I realise how much I need a new life on my own.

Such was my mood on entering school – but no sooner had I arrived that I was bucked a little by Mrs Marchmount’s tale of Sunday night – she had dated a man who claimed that his wife had stolen all his money and his car, and so couldn’t get to the agreed rendezvous. Rejecting his suggestion that she attend his house she countered with an offer to pay his taxi fare upon his arrival at the restaurant. However, when he got there it turned out he was sixteen years older and six stone heavier than he had suggested in his advert. Mrs Marchmount paid the fare twice and told driver to take him straight back where he had come from.

We cheered, until a dentist came in and told us were disturbing their patients. I ordered a pizza.

Discussion turned to my problems. “Our jobs are under threat, no one tells us what is going on, Janice has got her new big thing unravelling Personnel…” (I thought of adding something about Derek, but dropped it), “and I have been invited out by four men none of whom is my physical, intellectual or temporal equal.

Mrs Marchmount, who had until today been paying attention to no one but herself, demanded to know what a temporal equal was.

I explained that they were all of different age ranges from me. “One is a bi-lingual spotty youth, one is a pot-bellied balding OAP, one is my neighbour who quite possibly is the same person who turned up in your taxi, and the other is a Havoc-Blythe. What sort of life is that?”

There was general agreement and we shared my pizza. The anchovies had been arranged to say something in Latvian but we were all too tired to work out what.

At lunch I was approached by a dentist I had not seen before, who had his 12 year old son in tow.  The kid it seemed had been brought along as translator. Via his descendent the dentist thanked me for all I had done for their community, apologised for the rude way in which we had been asked to quieten down, and wondered if he could take me out for a meal tonight to show his appreciation. It was not made clear if the son would be there to translate, or if he was expecting to move over to hand signals.

I declined.

Janice seemed to be unaware of my downhearted state, which made me even more downhearted.  I mean, what are friends for if not for cheering you up when you are down? 

In the evening I read through all the postcards that had been delivered, which suggested I could have a much better life if I joined up with whatever organisation was sending me the postcards.  I put them all in the window, arranged by colour - which I now noticed matched the colours of the rainbow.  I remembered the order was something to do with Richard of York giving Battle, and that occupied ten minutes.

Not my best evening.

This entry was posted on 08/07/2008 at 09:28 am and is filed under News. 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.

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