Plague Days
Mar. 12th, 2005 01:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
i_kenderI have climbed out of a mountain of damp and crumpled tissues to bring you this special report. I feel awful and unreal. Another fever dream Thursday... after cancelling my plans for the next few days, with regret, I fell into a shallow sleep. I dreamed I had a call from the agency asking me to work on Friday. Accepted to get her off the phone. Woke up and...
Fuck, that wasn’t a dream.
Working today with a fever was, needless to say, interesting.
It helps to picture this next sequence as a Benny Hill sketch, with the tiddly tiddly um music, and the busty ladies and Benny running in fast forward. But with a swarm of the Pitch Black aliens behind them, perhaps, and the occasional technicolour explosion of blood and viscera.
Woke up, ran about, drank various pills and potions, and fled the house in plenty of time because work was far away. Caught a bus to Feltham... if any of you are lucky enough to have never heard of it, it’s particularly well known for its Young Offenders institution. Also, let’s see, prisons and immigration centres. It is the cultural birthplace of felching. It was named Feltham during a drunken naming ceremony, in a bilious explosion of vomitous by a public official. “And to name this town, Harold Whifflesnap!” “What’s wrong Harold?” “He’s choking!” “Ker-fawh- FAW-FWAHRH-hakh-hup... hurrp, hurrup, F-felth-kharummMMM!!” Later shortened to Feltham. He may have been trying for ‘phlegm’.
My life as a comedy... due to truly inept directions from agency staff, and my own dizzy consciousness... going through Feltham, looking for the building I’ve been told to look out for... here’s Feltham... there’s the High Street... that’s a famous pub... hang on, where’s Feltham gone?... get off bus, scratch head like Stan Laurel, get back on bus in other direction. Call agency, apologise for being late, reconfirm directions. Sail through Feltham again. There goes the High Street, it should be anywhere along... here... I’ve run out of Feltham again. Bugger. Cue third bus trip. Get off somewhere that I know is definitely in Feltham, along the High Street. Ah ha! At least I know I can’t be far now. Only ten or fifteen minutes of wandering around in the rain before I found it.
And I left my hat on one of the buses.
Later on in the day, my shoelace snapped. How I laughed!
The temp I’m replacing is an Excel genius. He’s only been there four weeks, but he was so knowledgeable and comfortable in the role I wouldn’t have credited it. He deserves medals and baskets of gold and other awards that, come to think of it, they don’t tend to shower temps in. He did things in Excel while demonstrating the role, in five minutes, that it’s going to take me weeks to learn. With fanfares, and scintillating rainbow graphs, while angels sang the Microsoft theme. Luckily he gave good notes, because he’s gone now. My Excel? Not so good. Meh... I can fiddle. Monday is the same all over again, preferably with less fever and lack of direction, but from 8 to 4. Which means a *really* early start. Gah! I honestly don’t know if I’m skilled enough for this role, but I’ll give it a go. I know the agency must have been desperate to call me... not being disparaging of my own abilities, it’s just that they called me at 5.30 on the Thursday to tell me to turn up the next day! And then called back a few minutes later because they didn’t have any references for me! Now *that’s* desperate! Damn, I knew I should have held out for more money.
If I can’t do it, I will just say, and the agency will have to deal with that. Well, fuck ‘em, it’s not like they’ve done any favours for me lately.
It took me nearly two hours to get home because I was tired and ill. And I had to stop by the bank to pay the electricity bill before we’re cut off, only I couldn’t because of a delinquent cheque which hasn’t yet cleared. Le sigh. I managed to pick up fruit juice and vast amounts of medication on the way home, and plan to spend the weekend in my bed in a stupor, reading books and blowing my nose.
Any mistakes in spelling or grammar are due to illness. Any melodrama about being ill with the man flu is entirely down to the fact that I am, in fact, a man. Yes, it’s true. I’m sorry if that shocked anyone.
Oh, and you know that thing about first impressions lasting? Due to nasty illness, I sounded like Fozzie Bear at work today. But looked more like John Belushi. Yes, I *know* he’s dead...
Hope my day has amused someone. Tune in next week, etc. And... collapse :)
Fuck, that wasn’t a dream.
Working today with a fever was, needless to say, interesting.
It helps to picture this next sequence as a Benny Hill sketch, with the tiddly tiddly um music, and the busty ladies and Benny running in fast forward. But with a swarm of the Pitch Black aliens behind them, perhaps, and the occasional technicolour explosion of blood and viscera.
Woke up, ran about, drank various pills and potions, and fled the house in plenty of time because work was far away. Caught a bus to Feltham... if any of you are lucky enough to have never heard of it, it’s particularly well known for its Young Offenders institution. Also, let’s see, prisons and immigration centres. It is the cultural birthplace of felching. It was named Feltham during a drunken naming ceremony, in a bilious explosion of vomitous by a public official. “And to name this town, Harold Whifflesnap!” “What’s wrong Harold?” “He’s choking!” “Ker-fawh- FAW-FWAHRH-hakh-hup... hurrp, hurrup, F-felth-kharummMMM!!” Later shortened to Feltham. He may have been trying for ‘phlegm’.
My life as a comedy... due to truly inept directions from agency staff, and my own dizzy consciousness... going through Feltham, looking for the building I’ve been told to look out for... here’s Feltham... there’s the High Street... that’s a famous pub... hang on, where’s Feltham gone?... get off bus, scratch head like Stan Laurel, get back on bus in other direction. Call agency, apologise for being late, reconfirm directions. Sail through Feltham again. There goes the High Street, it should be anywhere along... here... I’ve run out of Feltham again. Bugger. Cue third bus trip. Get off somewhere that I know is definitely in Feltham, along the High Street. Ah ha! At least I know I can’t be far now. Only ten or fifteen minutes of wandering around in the rain before I found it.
And I left my hat on one of the buses.
Later on in the day, my shoelace snapped. How I laughed!
The temp I’m replacing is an Excel genius. He’s only been there four weeks, but he was so knowledgeable and comfortable in the role I wouldn’t have credited it. He deserves medals and baskets of gold and other awards that, come to think of it, they don’t tend to shower temps in. He did things in Excel while demonstrating the role, in five minutes, that it’s going to take me weeks to learn. With fanfares, and scintillating rainbow graphs, while angels sang the Microsoft theme. Luckily he gave good notes, because he’s gone now. My Excel? Not so good. Meh... I can fiddle. Monday is the same all over again, preferably with less fever and lack of direction, but from 8 to 4. Which means a *really* early start. Gah! I honestly don’t know if I’m skilled enough for this role, but I’ll give it a go. I know the agency must have been desperate to call me... not being disparaging of my own abilities, it’s just that they called me at 5.30 on the Thursday to tell me to turn up the next day! And then called back a few minutes later because they didn’t have any references for me! Now *that’s* desperate! Damn, I knew I should have held out for more money.
If I can’t do it, I will just say, and the agency will have to deal with that. Well, fuck ‘em, it’s not like they’ve done any favours for me lately.
It took me nearly two hours to get home because I was tired and ill. And I had to stop by the bank to pay the electricity bill before we’re cut off, only I couldn’t because of a delinquent cheque which hasn’t yet cleared. Le sigh. I managed to pick up fruit juice and vast amounts of medication on the way home, and plan to spend the weekend in my bed in a stupor, reading books and blowing my nose.
Any mistakes in spelling or grammar are due to illness. Any melodrama about being ill with the man flu is entirely down to the fact that I am, in fact, a man. Yes, it’s true. I’m sorry if that shocked anyone.
Oh, and you know that thing about first impressions lasting? Due to nasty illness, I sounded like Fozzie Bear at work today. But looked more like John Belushi. Yes, I *know* he’s dead...
Hope my day has amused someone. Tune in next week, etc. And... collapse :)
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