Joke 889

Mickey Mouse Bus (Photo credit: Joi)

Apologies for the late joke.  Blame yesterday’s public transport.

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Heard on a public transportation vehicle in Orlando.

“When you exit the bus, please be sure to lower your head and watch your step.”

“If you miss your step and hit your head, please lower your voice and watch your language. Thank you.” 

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Seen on the back of a van in Rochester, New York:

Caution: Blind Man Driving

On the side of the van (after passing it to see who might be driving):

Rochester Venetian Blind Co.

**

From ahajokes.

 

Fully Booked

This is the fourth and last week of my work placement. I have enjoyed it and I have learned quite a bit as well, especially about Excel. I have also experienced new jobs like diary-keeping and I think I’m rather good at it.

However, it is possible that all of that thar noo larnin has addled my brain, if yesterday is anything to go by. My good friend J and I and some of our writing buddies are trying to set up a writing group at the art gallery. It’s a long story that I will share with you another day. J has been trying to organise an evening meeting for tonight that everyone can attend but I can’t go because I’d arranged to visit my blonde friend. When I was doing my back-to-work course at the same place as my work placement, she and I met once or twice for breakfast beforehand, so I suggested that we do that yesterday morning. She emailed on Sunday to say she could make it, and we arranged to meet at nine.

Being so busy on Sunday, with ironing and gardening and shouting at the Hub, I forgot to tell him about it. In fact, I forgot all about it myself until I was dropping off to sleep and suddenly sat up in bed when I remembered. I wrote myself a reminder note and fell asleep. Do you ever have those dreams where something is not quite right and it niggles at you but you can’t work out what it is? At five-thirty in the morning I startled myself awake by shouting, ‘Nine o’clock!  Nine o’clock!’ Nine o’clock was when I breakfasted with J before starting my course at ten o’clock; nine o’clock is also the time I have started work every morning for the past three weeks.

I emailed J as soon as I got up, passing the post-to-be-posted in the hall as I staggered into the lounge at six a.m. and reminding myself to take it with me when I went out. I thought I would text J in case she didn’t read her emails before she left, and at six-thirty I managed a jokey message and tried to send it to her. That’s when I realised I didn’t have her number. Well, I did; but it was on the phone I had previously run through my washing machine’s hot cycle and therefore lying in a landfill on the other side of Stockport.

Thus, at six-forty-five I was rifling through notebooks 15 to 26 in the hope of finding her number written down; but it was not to be. Panic set in at about six-fifty-three: can’t leave J sitting in a café with a coffee, a tea, four slices of toast and an ‘I’ve been stood up’ look on her face. Can’t be late for (unpaid and with no job at the end of it) work. What to do? What to do?

I emailed J with a brief explanation (she had it luckier than you) and asked her to text me if she received it; and would she like to meet for lunch instead? My plan was to go to the café if I didn’t hear from her and grovel an apology before abandoning her. I usually arrive at work with ten minutes to spare and she is always chronically early so I thought I could abase myself and still get to work on time.

The bus chose to be late; so late, in fact, that it arrived holding hands with the one that comes thirty minutes after. This was highly unsatisfactory to the student at the bus stop who complained to me that she would miss her exam which was a re-sit because she failed the last one and she knew she had it from May 31st so she had weeks to revise but she still managed to forget so now she was going to be late for an exam that she couldn’t pass last time and wouldn’t pass this time because Geography was so hard and they wanted specific answers and it was so hard to write exactly what they wanted and it was all too much and she had waited for the stupid bus since ten-past-eight and it was now ten-to-nine and she wasn’t going to make it because it was all so hard life was so hard. When she paused for breath I filled the gap by asking her what she wanted to do after college. Her reply? You couldn’t make it up: ‘a counsellor.’

She phoned for a taxi and when our two buses came she decided to forego both and wait for her cab. The last I saw of her, she left her giant blue handbag on the wall of her house, went inside and closed the door. I’m betting she never made her exam. I did make it to work on time, however; the marvellous J read her emails and texted me just before my stop.

I had a nice morning at work and then phoned the Hub to tell him that I was drawing money out of the bank to pay for the postage and to ignore the note I left him because I wasn’t meeting J for lunch because she couldn’t make it. He was a bit short with me but he was still cleaning grass from his teeth so I didn’t think much of his, ‘What happened to us going up to the post office at Edgeley and then taking the dog to the park like we arranged?’ But he had left the post for me, hadn’t he? It was only after I hung up that I remembered that on Sunday we had, indeed, made plans to go up to the post office at Edgeley on Monday and then onto the park with the dog, and I was still on the timetable we had planned before the new plan and the post-to-be-posted just happened to be sitting in the place where the post-to-be-posted always sits.

Having grovelled to the Hub in lieu of J, I thought that at least I knew I was safe on Tuesday, visiting my blonde friend just after seven in the evening, and I turned to my diary for comfort. That’s when I noticed I had pencilled in a meeting for those adults involved with the church holiday club… at seven-thirty.

So, I ditched my husband in favour of my friend; I ditched my friend in favour of work; and I ditched another friend in favour of strange children. I think I might have to take ‘excellent diary-keeping skills’ off my CV.

A Pain On The Train

I was so tempted not to post yesterday and let you all wonder if I had been mugged on the bus, but I’m not that mean.  Then I saw the Madam & Eve cartoon and had to post anyway, so I killed my own joke.  I had another busy day yesterday, compounded by the effect of drinking a whole glass of martini & lemonade the night before.  I felt like I had a hangover; that’s what late nights do to me – I was out until ten on Wednesday.

I went to the Best of Manchester Poets book launch and had a blast. Standing with a martini in one hand and a poetry book in the other is like a little piece of heaven on earth; all I needed was a Malteser and I could have died at that moment of utter joy. The ice-cube in the drink was listening to some excellent poetry read out by real performance poets. A fabulous night.

Getting there was a bit of a performance – well, not getting there so much as preparing to get there. It took me over an hour of trawling the GMPTE website to discover, first, it would take three buses and a train to get there and, second, that it wouldn’t.

Studying maps of the centre of Manchester, the Hub decided that I shouldn’t walk 700 metres up one street in a sort of unfamiliar city (I’ve been there only for tutorials and exams and summer school and the occasional foray into Primark) and persuaded me to get the train instead, which would bring me out much closer to the venue, the Green Room.

I never need much persuading to take a train, but I wanted to save some money: one of/the only perk of my work placement is that they pay £7 of my £11 megarider, a weekly bus ticket. I thought I might as well use it to go into Manchester but the Hub encouraged me to waste our hard-earned £5 nest egg instead. You think I’m joking about the nest egg?  Last year, I decided in January to save all my spare change and use it towards Christmas Dinner. I gave up in August when I had a total of £3.72 in my jar. I bought us all an ice cream instead.

It wasn’t just deciding on the best mode of transport for my perilous undertaking; there was also the matter of the correct attire for an evening literary engagement:

dress/skirt/trousers?

 Trousers.

top – black/white/black & white/short-sleeved/long-sleeved/tucked in/left out?

Tory Boy & Spud Bud, look away now!

That took some sorting and included a raid on my sons’ wardrobes to see if they had anything that might fit me (they didn’t) and a jack-in-the-box bra-fitting impersonation as I tried on black top (needed a black bra), white top (needed a white bra), black top (black bra), white top (white bra), black & white top (hysteria began to set in).

Okay boys, it’s safe again.

There was a frantic rummage through my jewellery boxes for my graduation brooch (a story for another day) and then it was just a matter of choosing shoes. There was no choice, really, because my state-sponsored tap shoes are too uncomfortable to wear without a carpet underfoot. I have taken to going to work in the Hub-and-my trainers (black with velcro straps; the Hub bought them for himself but has yet to feel how comfy they are because I keep them on my shoe rack and snarl if he tries to borrow them) and changing into the toe-cripplers before I start. It’s an idea I got from Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl, before her trout pout and Alex Baldwin was famous. I didn’t want to be tramping on and off trains and around Manchester in pain – the medievally-tortured face is so last season – so I put on my faux-Cat beige boots and promptly took them off again, opting for pain and aesthetics instead.

The look complete – black pants, black shoes, blood-red feet, white blouse (the first item I had tried on and discarded) and white bra (though nearly…), the Hub and I were getting into the car for the station as Spud said, ‘You do know your top is see-through, Mum; don’t you?’ The Hub was having none of my reasonable panic attack and ushered me in to the car with all the finesse of a long-time cop arresting a particularly nasty serial killer who first ties the tongues of fourteen year old tactless sons into slip knots before topping their crazy mothers.

I hobbled onto the Manchester Piccadilly train and hobbled off again seven minutes later, thinking that was £1.30 well spent – for a return ticket as well.  It costs me 20p more for a single journey into the centre of Stockport, which I can walk in twenty minutes (or two weeks, depending on the shoes).  Manchester is quite a bit further on.  However, my penny-pinching soul’s joy was short-lived because I was later charged 50p for a slice of lemon in my martini.  Hmmph. 

The train was packed but I found a seat and squeezed in, then squeezed right out again before the seat had time to sag when I noticed the First Class signs posted all over the windows.  I tried to go through to the next carriage but couldn’t get one of the connecting doors to open and bashed my head on the glass.  It wasn’t until an hour later that I discovered, when the people I thought were staring at me in the bar because I had a poem in the book, that they couldn’t take their eyes off me because there was a backwards ‘Out of Order’ imprint on my forehead. 

I didn’t mind standing in the train corridor and being squashed against the toilet door because it gave me the opportunity to overhear the following conversation:

Woman 1: Put her in with the cockerel.

Woman 2: No, she’ll regenerate like the TARDIS.

I am so sad that I never heard the end of it but it was my own fault because I suddenly noticed the emergency medical kit glass looked cracked.  Don’t ask me why I decided to test it, because I don’t know.  Thank goodness the glass fell quietly inwards instead of tinkling to the floor of the train.  I hope there was no cctv on board.

I changed at Piccadilly for Oxford Road, an uneventful two-minute ride, and popped into the loo when I arrived.  It was at that point that most people would have noticed a forehead covered in ink, but I was distracted by the fairground effect caused by the aluminium that masqueraded as a mirror.  I also had to deal with the conundrum of the toilet roll: imagine a ship’s life belt stapled to the back of a toilet door and you can’t even begin to imagine how big this thing was.  I had to decide how much I would need before I sat down.  I had a nervous stomach because of the event but I wasn’t sure quite how nervous it was: take too much toilet roll and I had the problem of what to do with the leftovers; take too little and I was stuck in a public toilet for the night.  The ideal solution would have been to unravel some and then sit down with it, gently tugging at it until I had enough for my needs.  Pity I’ve only just thought of the ideal solution two days later.  I’ll gloss over what happened next.

The Green Room is just around the down hill corner from the station.  I’ve told you I had a great night.  The award-winning performance poet Dominic Berry hosted the evening.  I’d like to say I’ve heard of him, but I haven’t.  He was excellent, though.  We poets were all given our free copies when we arrived – it’s a proper paperback with an ISBN number and everything!  Available on Amazon, by the way.  An editor was chatting to some of us and she said that almost 600 poems had been submitted and only around sixty had been accepted, lots of them by new poets like me.  It was alleged that quite a few well-established poets had been put out by not being accepted, but all submissions had been read anonymously.   I did notice, however, that each of the editors and the publisher had at least one poem in the book…hmm.  This particular editor must have thought me rude and discriminatory because I gave her funny looks while she was talking to me; but it wasn’t because she was disabled – she had a bit of dirt stuck to her eyelash and it batted against her glasses and freaked me out.  I wanted to pass her a wet wipe but thought she might take offence.  I wonder if it was better that she believes me bigoted than critical of her personal hygiene?  Some days I am terribly British.

Dominic Berry talked about the Manchester poetry scene being a natural successor to the Mersey poetry scene; it was interesting, then, that the first five poets to read were from London and Wales.  I am from Liverpool but I didn’t read – not with this voice.  In church the other day I twice had to say the phrase ‘her hair’; with my accent it sounded like ‘hur hur’.  Twice.  I wouldn’t mind, but it wasn’t even my turn to read the lesson; I had been asked to swap.

I left the Green Room just after nine, having heard some wonderful poetry and sucked the life out of my fifty pence lemon slice so they couldn’t re-use it and charge some other mug for the privilege.  I crawled up the hill with my chánzú feet and straight onto a train bound for Piccadilly.  It wasn’t worth sitting down for such a short ride; I stood at the door holding onto the granny bars with both hands in case the door flew open en route and I fell out and was crushed to death by a train or electrocuted by the live rails, and looked down at the city, contemplating that train is the best way to travel, ever, when the driver announced that there had been a signal outage at Burnage and all services had been severely disrupted and  this train was terminating at Piccadilly.   The petulant student who had bruised me with his skateboard as he struggled past me with his humongous rucksack and massive suitcase was not pleased, and phoned his Mum to tell her so.  It was ridiculous: after all, he had arrived in time to catch this particular train.  What was the point?

I dismounted at Piccadilly and walked on my hands to the next Stockport train, which was Birmingham-bound.  Climbed aboard; was pushed back by the rush of passengers ordered off that now broken train in order to catch the one behind; boarded the one behind and sat amongst the detritus there must have been no time to clear away before it was called into service; and watched people fall over my feet, which were three times larger than my stomach and just as pretty.  I remember looking at the symmetrical moles I suddenly noticed and then realising they were shoe buttons. 

The seven-minute journey took fifteen but the glorious Hub was waiting for me as I staggered out of the station on the back of a stranger I had requisitioned to carry me, and within minutes I was in my bathroom, feet in sink and warm water schmoozing contented ooos from me.  I was desperate for my bed so I thought I might as well brush my teeth while I was there, but I didn’t think it through: where to spit?

Well, it must have taken you as long to read this as my entire night out.  I bet you wish I’d taken the bus after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Scouse Apology

Soz liccchhhh.

I know I promised you details of the bus ride that never happened but I am too tired to finish it. I’ve written novels that are shorter. I haven’t really, but I’m so tired I have no idea what I’m saying.

I’m going to add insult to injury by giving you a poem about a dead rat. I nearly fell over it the other morning when walking for the bus. It looked as if it had just fallen asleep, apart from the fact that it was stiff enough to pick up and bash some spitting boys with.

I happened to be working on the prompt from Big Tent so it gave me my subject matter. The prompt was a Wordle which I can’t reproduce so you’ll have to take my wordle for it.

Tsetse Rat

Poor rat and your pedestrian end:
was it death by cat?
I hope it was old age; you fell asleep.
Dark comfort in your long rest.

Dangerous praise to resent your passing,
forlorn corpse; scorned by
heels and prams and bicycle wheels.

Sleep peaceful, rat, on your dull part
of the dirty path; curled like an idle moon.

A Wuss On A Bus

Thanks to all the supportive comments from my readers and incessant nagging from Flo, I have decided I am up to the challenge of riding public transport into Manchester. My desire to get the book in my hands is greater than my desire to stay safely at home, tucked up in bed with a bag of Maltesers and a wish-I’d-been-brave-enough-to-go cuddle for my sweaty pillow (sweaty because of the nightmares I’ve been having about travelling on public transport). I figured I did it once to be a part of television history (the first leaders’ debate at Granada Studios) so I can do it again to be a part of my own history.  As long as I leave the place by nine, I can be home before it gets dark.

Think of me tonight, riding a bus in broad daylight; I can’t believe how brave I am.

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This week’s Writer’s Island prompt is ‘the gift’.  I struggled with it and could only come up with this trite little rhyme; the rhythm of the last line is deliberate:

A Strange Gift

Time spent in thinking and writing
is always time well-spent;
time to compose a poem
is surely heaven-sent:
so thanks, Lord, for the gift of
long-term unemployment.

Pity The Poor Lonely Poet

The book in which my poem ‘Find A Solution’ appears is being launched on Wednesday in Manchester.  I want to go but I have no-one to go with.  Spud is in the middle of exams and can’t afford a night off.  The Hub and I have an agreement: he doesn’t force me to stab pins in my ears and I don’t force him to listen to any poetry that isn’t mine.  I know Tory Boy would come with me because he’s the best child I have who doesn’t live here full time, but he’s in Lancaster not doing anything now his exams have finished.

I could go alone, of course, but that means using public transport on my own after six.  I have a rule: no public transport on my own after six. 

Wait a minute…inspiration!  Why not change the rule?

Okay [gulp]; I’ll do it.  What decided me was the realisation that going alone means no-one will be there to witness my humiliation when they ask me what I’m doing there with my pretensions to write poetry and of course they decided not to use my poem after all despite the emails and proofs bouncing back and forth and everyone in the room is laughing at me and I haven’t even fallen over yet.  Getting mugged because I’m alone on public transport will be worth it to avoid that embarrassing  situation.

Or I could just not go at all.  Who knew success came with such a downside?