When the bus stopped at traffic lights this morning I saw a car hastily pulled up on the pavement. It seemed a bit odd and I noticed a man in the phonebox nearby. He had the receiver pressed to his ear and was waving his hands in animated conversation.
I couldn’t hear a word he was saying and speculated briefly on what might have happened. A pressing work problem perhaps ? Had he forgotten to take the kids to school, or simply left the iron on ? He might even have remembered a winning point in that morning’s argument with his wife, and felt compelled to pull over to drive the point home.
As I was mulling this over, a traffic warden appeared from nowhere and set about issuing a ticket. The man noticed this and angrily poked his head out of the phonebox and started shouting and gesticulating wildly. His bad day had just got much worse…
The traffic light flicked green and the bus motored off round the corner leaving them to fight it out. Did he get the ticket, or did he manage to beg and plead his way out of it ? I’ll never know…
As I was strolling back from work this evening, listening to music on the headphones, I spotted a scruffy woman ahead. She looked a bit shifty and I half expected her to ask for money.
She caught my eye and said something as I walked by. I stopped uncertainly and removed my headphones to hear her question. She asked anxiously if I knew any locksmiths in the area. It was after 7pm and I couldn’t think of any that might be open. I weakly suggested she might find a copy of the yellow pages in the local corner shop and carried on my way. I guess she’d been locked out.
These little incidents made me think about the countless dramas and crises that happen to people every day. Getting a damn parking ticket while trying to sort out a pressing problem must drive you mad, or locking yourself out in a moment of forgetfulness…
Every now and again it happens to you. An unbelieveable concoction of events conspire to give you a really bad day. I sometimes suspect these things go in cycles. Today it was the turn of the man in the phonebox and the woman in the street. One day it will roll around again to me to have a bad day with little crises and dramas to sort out…
last time I remember things going pear shaped was when I got to Heathrow to discover my passport had expired….ha ha !
So yeah... 