a day in the life of...

Last night, as I was finishing up after a lovely quiet day at work, I got a message from Luke inviting me to movies with him and a few friends. Immediately the internal battle began – since I’ve been on antibiotics I’ve been too tired to go to gym and as it was my first day off the drugs I was planning on going to the gym to battle it out and panic over how unfit I’ve become. Seriously, if I go to gym every day it takes weeks for me to notice any improvement, but if I miss even one day I go downhill ridiculously fast. It’s really frustrating, but I guess I’m stuck with the metabolism I was born with and I have to keep going and live with it.

At the same time I haven’t been to see a movie in ages, and I hadn’t seen the usual movie gang in a long time either. To top it all off, Alfred, one of the guys who works at the vet, heard me stressing about the decision and decided to encourage me to go to the movie. So I decided to go home and then decide from there. When I left work I found that every single robot in the area wasn’t working. So there was a lovely gridlock. I called a friend who lives nearby and she said that it was clearish around her, so I managed to use backroutes and get to her house. She told me in no uncertain terms that I WAS going to the movies, and as I’d left some clothes at her house I was able to change (there was a horrible dog-vomit incident at the vet yesterday, and although I was able to avoid being in the line of fire at any stage, I still felt dirty and disgusting. Then she sat me down and did my makeup. Oh my gosh. The makeup! She’s done it for me before, but typically before we go out clubbing or somewhere where the panda look is ok. I did not intend to arrive at the movies looking like I’d been punched in the eyes, but when I went through my bag for my trusty makeup-remover wipes I realised that I’d left them at another friend’s house (moral of the story, pack up before you leave!).

So I got to the shopping centre and was greeted by a round of double-takes and a few very shocked expressions. They tried to say it was all about the hair (which is relatively bright red at the moment) but I felt really awkward. Once the initial “It wasn’t me! My friend did it and I can’t get it off!” explanation was out of the way I tried to ignore it, but I must admit, I felt uncomfortable, even in my car on the way home, until I got home and scrubbed it all off!

We went and saw ‘Yes Man’ which was really funny, although I caught myself wondering if it was really that great – a lot of the humour that had me giggling helplessly was the type that usually makes me avoid movies entirely. Either way, I was obviously in the right mood for the movie and I enjoyed most of it thoroughly (there was one scene that will stay with me for a bit, and not in a good way)!

This morning started off relatively well, I chatted to a friend, saw my parents off (they’ve taken my grandparents on holiday until Monday), went to gym and nearly died (seriously, a week ago I was the fittest I’ve been in ages and now it’s back somewhere beyond square one), checked my email, too a swim and the went rushing off to work. And that is where it all went wrong…

I was happily driving along a particular stretch of road that connects up to William Nicol (one of the big main roads). This road has two lanes in each direction, no driveways or concealed entrances and enough robots scattered along it that you don’t really ever have to worry about pedestrians jaywalking or anything. And for some completely incomprehensible reason, the powers-that-be decided to make the speed-limit along there 60km/h – the same as in a built-up area on a single lane road with driveways and schoolchildren and so on. In the nearly 5 years that I’ve been driving the only cars I’ve ever seen sticking to the speed limit along there are the dodgy ones that are stuck together with chewing-gum and string that can’t make it over 40 unless they’re on a downhill and they don’t have any passengers.

So of course, today of all days, they decided to sit behind the bushes with their speed cameras. And every single car on the road was pulled over. I was the second-last of my batch and the cop was really nice and polite, we chatted about the weather and how hot it was and then he decided to tell me that as I had been driving at 72km/h he had to give me a fine. I freaked out and explained that I was late for work (which by then I was) and that the road is straight and I hadn’t noticed and so on. To tell the truth I don’t think they’d used the camera on me at all, as they only pulled me over when I drove past, saw the cops and braked with a terrified expression on my face. I apologised profusely and asked if I could call my boss because I was running very late by then (I was about 15 minutes away and I had 5 minutes before my shift started) to tell him that I was going to be late and to find out if the morning receptionist could cover for me for a few minutes until I got there.

I don’t know if the guy had just been trying to scare me, or if the fact that I had taken off my sunglasses, made eye contact and asked how he was today made any difference, but he let me call the vet and explain that I was stuck in a roadblock with police, and then he told me to wait while the lady before me got her ticket. Once she had left he explained that he didn’t want her getting upset that she got a ticket and I didn’t, and he let me off with a warning. And so I drove like a grandmother to work where I collapsed behind the front desk and told my whole long story to the other staff at the vet. Charlotte, the morning lady (who looks about 20 years older than me, but it turns out she is actually a grandmother already) was really sweet and told me to drive carefully and was off on her way.

And that was my day today! Lets hope it gets better!