Scraaaaatch, oops, aaaaaah!

You know how they say that bad things happen in threes? Well I think I can say I've officially been three'd today.

The 'Scraaaaatch':
Let me start by telling you that my car has white painted alloy wheels. They go well with the white roof, the white bonnet strips, and the white wing mirrors. Well, I say 'white'; what with all the road grime and the lack of me actually bothering to wash it recently they're a bit more dirt-coloured. Rather than a red and white-coloured car it's more like a dull red and dirt-coloured car. Must do something about that soon…

Anyway.

So there I am this morning driving through Chiswick on my way to work when I notice an ambulance roaring up behind me with its lights flashing and its sirens blaring. I did what any good motorist would do and pulled into the side of the road to let it by. However, where I was I had to pull into the top of another road, and part way up onto the pavement; Chiswick's roads a tad tight, I should add. Anyway, the ambulance zooms past, and I start to pull out again. The front wheel bumps of the pavement all well and good, then the back wheel … well, there was this sort of unhealthy scraping sound, readers, that sort of made me feel a little bit sick.

I got to work, ran round to the left-hand side of the car, and yep, there it was: a four centimetre gash on the alloy.

Humph.

This has happened to me before, truth be told, and luckily I've got the number of this awesome dude who can repair such offending surface abberations quickly, efficiently, and with minimal impact on my wallet. I shall give him a call and get it sorted, but, y'know, "Grrrr" in the meantime.

I do hope that ambulance was actually responding to a genuine emergency, and they weren't just rushing back to home base because Doris the kitchen-hand was preparing sausage and bacon for breakfast, or some old bid had knocked her personal alarm because she'd lost the TV remote and couldn't turn over to Supermarket Sweep…

The 'Oops':
You might recall back at the beginning of the month I told you about how we had the doorframe replaced at the office. Well the time has come for it to be painted in vibrant and beguiling tones that enthrall any and all visitors!* We've hired a Polish chap for the task at hand, and he seems to be doing a very good job too. And he always says "thank you, thank you, cheers" when I make him a cup of coffee. Anyway, today he started applying a layer of rich red gloss paint to the door, and stuck a notice on the window that said "WET PAINT."

Not five minutes later a courier turns up with a package. I signed for the package using his little PDA thingy, then went to the toilet. Mid-flow I look at my hand, and notice that it's covered in, well, red.

Either some weird genetic anomaly means I'm having my first period, or the stupid courier touched the door, I thought.

The stupid courier had touched the door. I found fingerprints! Obviously he transferred the paint from his hand to his PDA, and from the PDA to my hand. Outrageous! And yet with such deductive skills I can't help thinking that the FBI should recruit me, or I should at least get a recurring role on that TV show Without a Trace.

Washing the paint off I then went and informed the painter of this annoying turn of events (and by that I mean I told him about the courier touching the door, not the bit about me having a period or joining the cast of Without a Trace). He nodded sagely, shrugged his shoulders, and basically told me that there's always one idiot that touches wet paint. Anyway, he still needs to do another coat or two, so it's not really a problem.

Stupid couriers!

The 'Aaaaaah!':
One problem with having the front door painted is that it needs to be open all the time, and the office is getting very cold. At least downstairs; upstairs they're all sweltering in a veritable tropical paradise. So us two Trekkie boys are getting, well, darn chilly. But hell, ever resourceful, I found a way to solve that problem.

I went to Starbucks and poured hot coffee on my leg!

Not on purpose, you understand. I set down my paper cup (obviously a china cup with its broader base would've been more resilient to a nudge from a writing pad, but their dishwasher's broken, so no china cups), slid my writing pad over, and knocked the bloody thing on it's side. I sat there dumbstruck as it poured out of the little hole in the plastic lid onto my thigh. The thing is, it was quite warm, so I considered leaving it to pool around my arse until I realised I'd have nothing to drink. Fortunately I only lost about three mouthfuls.

Unfortunately, after about 15 minutes it had lost all its warming properties, and I was left with a rather sizeable lukewarm damp patch of what looked to be either piss or liquidous poopy, or a combination of both. I spent most of the afternoon leaning to one side on my chair so as not to sit on it. I was also troubled by the fact that I was wearing white undercrackers today, and if any had seaped through they'd have to have gone right in the bin.

Here's some photographic evidence of the damp patch**.

Impressive, huh? Anyway, the story ends well. It came out in the wash!

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Epilogue: And so my day of three unfortunate events ends… but not before my first attempt at writing this post was lost mid-way through when blogger froze! Holy crap - that's four things! Duh-duh-duuuuuuuuuuuh!


*OK, went a bit Russell Brand again for a minute there, huh?
** Or just another excuse to post a photograph of my thighs and the crest of my arse? You decide!