"Allan it's quarter to eight!" comes the irritant voice of my Dad, shouting from downstairs. I don't panic. I mean it's only quarter to and I don't get up until half past. Hang on. What was that? Eight!? Sitting up in bed I choke on god knows what and come tumbling out. Why does time go that fast? I mean one minute I'm set for another hour or so and the next I'm extremely late for meeting my girlfriend at the bus stop and looking at the time she's probably already on the first bus!
I get changed as fast as I can and running down stairs I take my bowl and shovel coco-pops down my throat until, after four spoonfuls, I'm finished and ready to go. I notice that the time is now 7:55am, which means I have 5 minutes to get there without being completely late. I've missed my bus so I hop into my Dads car, the engine groans into life and off we go, at thirty miles per hour tearing down the street.
Another question I have about life is, why do traffic lights hate me? We're on the way and the first set are green.... and then we arrive at them and they blink that malicious red, as if they had done it on purpose just to spite me and make the morning ahead worse than it already was. The red turns to amber turns to green. And off we go again, speeding down the road not daring to slow down in case time sped up and beat us. Then what happens? Yes, you guessed it; it's red again.
Wow, I'm having the best luck today!
I look at the red light, blinding me. Having a staring competition, one I will win! You will blink first if it kills me. Eyes water, the light flickers teasingly, my eyes struggling not to close I squint and do my best impression of a chinese man to save myself from blinking. But the world goes black just for a brief second and the car roars into life as that green light finally flashes on.
My journey went the same way. Drive. Stop. Move on. Drive. Stop. Move on. By the time the clock turned 8:15am, I was within seeing distance of the bus station, just about two or three minutes left, the home run was there. The car began to move, gathering speed until slowly, slowly and.... we were two minutes away! This impossible race against time was nearly over. Finally! The relief I felt was immense, I was almost as relieved as a student that had just found out that his teacher wasn't in on the day he failed to hand in his now overdue homework (and believe me, I've been there!)
Ping! The beautiful green light of hope flicked out and fell dead as it's red brother took over. Now I wasn't only late, I was about a million years late!
Pulling up, I kicked open the door, shouldered my bag and sprinted towards the pedestrian crossing which (guess what) was on red. The traffic lights were all on green, now that I wasn't in the car, it's just the little bloody man that was red! After what seemed like an age, I was allowed to dash over to the other side and I had made it, at 8:20am, to my destination.
My girlfriend, Alissa, was waiting for me as predicted. Not the best time to be late, thinking that I really needed to make this up to her, I boarded the bus and slumped down in my seat for a rest.
Assuming it was Thursday, I had typically read the wrong time table. So I arrived late at my first lesson and allowed my day to take control.
***
Two lessons and a form time later, I found myself in the library, sitting down and reading the new book I had decided to pick up. Falling into the world of literature is quite an interesting plight, one loses oneself in the mysterious world that lurks ahead and explores the mind of the other human being who has put pen to paper and come to this result. As the plot begins to the thicken, what do I hear but the sound of... "WOULD YOU BE QUITE IN THE LIBRARY PLEASE!" the Liberian is yelling at the top of her voice to quiet the entire library, which would be all very well if she wasn't being the noisiest thing in it! I am awoken from the wonderful world of Thomas Covenant and find myself back in reality.
And if that isn't enough one of the women, who is a teacher in the library has the cheek to come up to my group of friends and tell us off! I mean come on, is it a crime to have some idle chit chat and read your book these days? It isn't the fact she told us off, its how she went about it. She walked up to us and said; "Excuse me", she was smiling pleasantly and we were all preparing ourselves to supply her with an answer to one of the many these people ask. "You do know this is a library?" Is it? A library? With loads of a book shelves? And sections to read? I hadn't noticed. All that I could utter in reply to this was, "thank you" and she disappeared leaving me to burst into laughter and fantasise at what replies I could have given.
But my day is unfinished, what lurks at the end is the second performance ever given by "Raffers and Kay", the comedy double act I started just two weeks or so previous.
Am I ready? Well as ready as a guy who is going to strip down to a vest that reads "F.B.I" (Female Body Inspector) and Popeye boxers in front of his new drama class can be I suppose. Will it go well? Only time and another post will tell...
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