Monday has come round and I'm back at work. I got in some exercise because my employer has decided to remove all the car park spaces around the offices, stick in yellow lines and hire a team of burly clampers to fine us employees fifty quid and wheelclamp our vehicle if we dare to disobey. For those of us foolhardy enough to bring in our vehicles, we can park a 15 minute walk away (on the other side of campus) and hoof it.
This is good exercise for a fatty bum bum like me. It takes me roughly 15 minutes to drive to the campus gates from home, 10 minutes to drive around the one way system on campus, get stuck behind the plethora of ruddy bikes and battle with blood boiling pedestrians that think its a god-given right to wander across the road without a thought, and 15 minutes to walk from my car to the office. Marvellous. If I walked the whole journey from home it would take me 20 mins. Food for thought.
I'm not even going to mention the parking permit system which means we now have to pay to park our vehicles at work - no, I am not going to even utter a word about it.
Back to exercise. I must've walked off my fondant fancy cake.
I share an office with Glam Sam, a fifty something siren and Seeta, my dizzy Muslim chum. It's just Sam and I today.
I have no intention of telling her about my diet.
'We've an emergency!' she yells even before I've got my coat off and my fruity lunchbox in the fridge. 'Roza's crying.'
Now this I find hard to believe. Roza works in our department but in a different office to me. She's a tough, old bird. Emotion is a stranger to Roza. She must be early 60s with a hang-dog face, a penchant for outlandish clothes and stinky breath from eating too much Polish sausage.
Sam, ever the nosey parker, commandeers Roza with a phone call, 'come in to us, darlin, don't hold it in,' she says softly into the receiver, rubbing her hands together at another's misery.
Roza, being the old goat that she is, leaves us waiting for an age before she arrives. I must admit she does look visibly shaken. She also looks a sight in a bottle green flamenco skirt, magenta lace blouse and spotted tights.
'Donald wants us to split!' Roza mumbles, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Donald is her partner of 18 years. I've never met him, but I know a lot about him.
Sam and I are on the case. We say all the right things.
'At your age, too,' I tut-tut. 'Just as you're on the verge of retirement together.
'Still a few years yet, Woo,' Roza replies, settling in Seeta's chair. 'It's not been the same, anyway, since Donald got made redundant, he's bored so don't talk about retirement.'
'How old is Donald?' asks Sam.
'58.'
'At that age!' Sam joins me in the tut-tutting, 'what is he thinking?'
'Do you think there could be anyone else?' I probe, imagining a man with time on his hands is a man up to mischief. I kneel down in front of her to be at eye-level, something I used to do with my son when he was a tearful toddler.
Roza thinks about this. She contorts her face and lets out a gush of breath....wowsers...I get caught in the gush....Polish sausage at it's most pungent. I almost faint. Roza grabs hold of my hand as I stumble backwards. She refuses to let go.
'Someone younger?' I hear Sam mention.
Another blast of bad breath has me cornered. I'm right in the firing line for another anniliation of Polish sausage.
'I'm 45,' announces Roza, gushing like a pressure cooker, 'you mean someone younger than me?'
I'm dizzy now. The rush of rancid breath has enveloped my soul. Sam notices and pulls me up.
'I feel a bit giddy,' I mutter. Sick, light headed and most definitely off my food.
Hmmm....a good idea for a diet. The stinky breath diet. Get someone with halitosis to puff out rancid breath in your direction, leaving you reeling. I could market it.
'You look shocked, Woo.' Sam gives me the once over as I sit, open mouthed and flabbergasted in my chair.
'Blummin' am! Never saw that coming.'
'Aye, you never know what happens behind closed doors.'
I shake my head. 'Not the split, Sam! I can't get over the fact she's 45, a year younger than me! Do I look that old too?'
Shocker. I always thought of Roza as a pensioner. If she looks over 60, do I? Do other people see me as a senior, a member of God's waiting room?
'Fancy a biscuit?' asks Sam.
No comments:
Post a Comment