Traffic Jam
So I’ve just returned the bulk of the Times Colonist to two women with whom it had lain unused and cluttering their table full of conversation. At first asking you would have thought that it was a national treasure entrusted to their safekeeping, but after a few seconds of deliberation they hand over the goods, although I notice that the younger one keeps the section with the horoscope. You know the horoscope with the picture of a lady whose hairstyle remains firmly rooted in the heady hippy days of the sixties.
I walk across the road to my work truck, my trusty steed, noticing yet again that it’s badly in need of a wash. As I back out of my parking spot, I become aware that my exit to the highway is blocked by a white car in the middle of the road and a lady is rushing towards me waving her arms as if trying to alert me to the fact that I’ve just run over her bichon freize with both sets of wheels.
“Oh!” she pants, “I was just about to phone you. Do you do electrical as well as yard work and painting? “Not if I can help it,” says I. “What do you need done?” “Well I need to replace two outside lights. The two I have work perfectly well but I can’t get replacement bulbs, so I decided to replace the fixtures instead.” “Well I’ll have a look, but you better check your home insurance just in case I actually attempt it.”
It’s Friday, and I tell her that I won’t get to it till Tuesday as I’m heading to Vancouver for the wife’s office Christmas party, with dinner, a hotel room and a matinee performance of Cirque du Soleil’s “Kooza”. Somebody must have had a good year. She tells me that’s the 14th and, as she’s going up island to her granddaughter’s Christmas pageant she won’t be back till the 16th.”But I’ll leave everything outside the door for you. And my hydrangea has just deposited all it’s leaves on my lovely new stone work, so could you do a general tidy up as well?”
“Will do,” says I, starting to put the truck in drive as I notice a slowly increasing line of traffic behind me.
“Oh and I got the paint,” says she. “What paint?” says I. “For the hallway and living room,” says she. “Remember we discussed it last time you were there?”
“Yes. And do you remember I said that because you were so fussy, and I was so fussy, that I only painted my own indoors and that even then I was never satisfied, and that I didn’t want to do it?”
“Oh,” says she waving a hand dismissively, possibly at some imaginary fly but probably at my reluctance, “you can practice in the hallway where it won’t be seen much and take it from there.”
“Well why don’t you give me a call when you get back and we’ll discuss it?”
“Why would I do that,” says she. “Haven’t we just discussed it?” And off she goes laughing to herself, satisfied that she has checked off the most important item of her day.
Meanwhile the car behind me and the one behind that are trying to outdo each other in encouraging us to move. My tormentor happily pulls a u-turn into a parking spot outside the coffee shop and I escape to the safety of the highway.