Monday, June 17, 2013

Workin' and commutin'

Hi everyone. Thanks for your nice comments on this post about my little girl P. I'm hoping all is behind us, so I can focus on the TRULY BIG ISSUES OF THE DAY. LIKE THIS!

Sigh. My life is so hard. I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I am not independently wealthy and I have to...I know, I can hardly say it...WORK for a living.

I KNOW.  The horror. The outrage. SURELY THERE HAS BEEN SOME MISTAKE???

Where is my tennis court? My swimming pool? Further to that, where is my Swimming Pool Boy? How come I don't get to spend all day sipping Pimms and reading on the banana lounge?

It's a cruel twist of fate that I have ended up this way.

Yeah yeah I know there are starving kids in Africa and unemployed types round the place but STILL. WORKING FOR THE MAN HEY? WHO INVENTED THAT?

Not. Fair.

Ugh I mean I know I am freaking lucky to have a job. And yeah it's two days a week and has flexible working hours and is paid well and matches my qualifications perfectly. Yeah yeah so what?

I AM STILL GOING TO MOAN ABOUT IT OK?

BOO HOO! WAAAH!

I can't seem to focus at work at the moment. M and I are ALWAYS LATE.  I have a really long commute and I EFFING HATE IT.

I've been doing this gold darn commute for bleedin' years and years and I've felt the whole time that it was a temporary thing. BUT IT ISN'T! UGH. Thank goodness it is only two days a week - any more and it would KILL ME. KILL ME I TELL YOU!

I have a carpark at work so these days I drive. For some ridiculous reason I have NEVER, like NEVER been organized enough to get my hands on any books on tape for the drive. I have friends and acquaintances who do a similar commute and are making their way through the Modern Classics at a rate of knots. I am just killing my brain with commercial radio. Dumber by the kilometre. If that's possible.

I have experimented with other modes of transport over the years. I used to catch the train quite a bit but it's such a rigmarole. Queensland is not know for its commitment to public transport. UNDERSTATEMENT. To get to the train station I have to drive 10 minutes. Then wait for the train. Then catch the train which takes over an hour. Then walk over the river from the train station which takes another 15 minutes. I NEED A SHOWER AND A LIE DOWN AND A SECOND BREAKFAST AFTER THAT I CAN TELL YOU!  Generally speaking I prefer to be stuck in traffic in my own car than at the mercy of Queensland Rail. Particularly with a full bladder. And 90% chance that the train loo will be broken. And the train station one too. OH GOD THE AGONY.

Also the high probability of being trapped in the carriage with a group of teenagers talking about BOYS and OTHER GIRLS and MUSIC is even worse than the pain of the full bladder. Oh give me a full bladder any day. Anything rather than suffer through the interminable and dimwitted convos of the youth of today.

The train trip was made slightly more palatable once I got my first Ipod. It was quite the thing! It didn't matter what shite the Young People spouted I was able to exist in my own bubble. And don't give me that "Oh back in my day we all used to talk to each other and have singalongs and play cards together on the train and knit each other sweaters and share Christmas Pudding together" because I'm Not Buying It. 

I have to say though that the Ipod situ did end in tears once though. This would only happen to me.

One morning I couldn't find my headphones so I stole M's new fancy ones. They were that type that you sit right into your ear canal. Noise canceling ear hook thingos or some such.

I tried them on at home and they were a bit fiddly. I had to twist and jiggle them to get them in right but I did it eventually. Pleased with my find I shoved them in the bag and headed to the train.

Once I got on I found a spot and sat down, grabbing my ear phones and shoving them in. They felt uncomfortable and like they weren't in properly, so I kept gently twisting them every now and then, until they seemed to be in position.
 I sat for while, gazing blankly out the window, ignoring the awkward fact my knees were gently touching those of the man facing me, until I felt a weird movement and realized the ear phone had fallen out of one ear and was hanging free.

But hang on! I could still feel something inside my ear? I had a bad feeling about it all.  I gingerly put my finger into my ear and BINGO! The ear bud had come away and lodged itself firmly in my ear canal!

I panicked. But only on the inside. Because EMBARRASSING! I looked furtively around to see if anyone was watching, and gently probed my passage again (what? get your mind out of the gutter).  Nothing doing. Panicked, I poked harder, which only served to shove it in further.

OH GOD NO I thought, panickedly. SHIT SHIT SHIT! It's going to end up lodging in my SINUS! Or my BRAIN! I CAN'T FEEL IT ANY MORE. WHERE HAS IT GONE?? STOP TOUCHING IT! STOP POKING IT! STOP IT STOP IT!

I restrained myself and put my hands in my lap. Shit a brick. There was another 40 minutes of the trip to go and I was stuck there on the train with an ear bud pushed half way into my brains. What the HELL WAS I GOING TO DO?

I tried to formulate a plan. I was SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE but remained poker faced. You would never have known my inner turmoil.

OK. When I get to the train station I am going to RUN ALL THE WAY TO WORK and then get one of the security guards to help pull it out.  NO! NO! Shit! I can't do that. The security guards are my NEMESES and I can't let them see my WEAKNESS! I will never hear the end of it. They will taunt me forever and dob me in for accidentally stealing a Visitors Pass. They already hate me DON'T GIVE THEM ANY FODDER! Should I ring M? Shit he can't help. Should I pull the emergency cord? Yes! I think I should. OK I'M GOING TO GET UP AND PULL THE CORD! OMG THIS IS TOTALLY AN EMERGENCY! I AM TOTALLY GOING TO DO THIS. IF THIS ISN'T AN EMERGENCY I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS!!

OK. OK. Hang on. Hang on. No it isn't. Calm down CALM DOWN! OK.

This is what you will do. You will get off at Central. You will WALK QUICKLY TO THE NEAREST MEDICAL CENTRE. And they will extract the ear bud. And you will then proceed to work and nobody will be any the wiser.

OK. So I did just that. The 40 minutes felt like 10 hours. Finally I got off at central and bolted to the nearest medical centre, as per the plan.

I came panting up to the receptionist.

"Please!" I gasped, disheveled and wild eyed. "Please, I need to see a doctor. NOW! IT IS AN EMERGENCY! I HAVE AN EAR PHONE STUCK IN MY HEAD!"

The girl rolled her eyes.

"There are no appointments available. You will have to go down to our sister medical centre, on A___ St."

Just my luck. I turned and ran like the wind to the other medical centre, and repeated my panicked plea for assistance.  As luck would have it, a kindly GP saw me straight away, and extracted the offending ear bud with a set of long thin tweezers. And he managed to keep a straight face.

"Oh THANK YOU!" I gushed afterwards. "OH, hahaha, oh dear I suppose this sort of thing happens ALL THE TIME! RIGHT? Doesn't it? AM I RIGHT? I'm right aren't I? All the TIME RIGHT?"

He looked at me pityingly. I hurriedly paid the receptionist and high tailed it out of there, arriving at work without a moment to spare.  The only thing I comforted myself with was the knowledge that my quick thinking had saved me from a lifetime of disgrace and humiliation at the hands of our sadistic and slow witted security guards, had I let them in on the secret.

Anyway this is a cautionary tale. If you are a meddling idiot, you know, like me, do not use those weird sticky inny ear phones. Because SHAME AND HUMILITION WILL BE YOUR DESTINY. MARK MY WORDS.

The end.

29 comments:

  1. Oh god I am wetting myself laughing! Although I am sure I would have been in a similar state od UTTER PANIC if it happened to me. I spent 2 years on trains and in the year I've been driving I have never missed them - not even once ;)

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    1. The trains are pretty freaking awful. MY PANIC WAS AT CRAZY LEVELS! But nobody would have known. I was screaming on the inside but CALM AND NORMAL on the outside. SKILLS!

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  2. You're not completely alone, my mum once lost a stick on nail in her ear!
    Not being mega wealthy is really unfortunate, I'm thinking of leading a coup and putting myself as some kind of despotic pseudo-empress to correct the obvious error of being born not rich/royal!

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    1. I will support you Lila! I can be your trusty second in command. Like Goebbels. A stick on nail eh? HOW AWFUL!

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  3. Nightmare! I was once on the train going in to work in London. I had a horrific hangover and just before my stop I ( to my own surprise!)vomited all over the expensively tailored suit of the guy sitting next to me. Jesus, the embarrassment. So I just pretended to cry and blurted out "I'm so sorry, morning sickness!". Although surely the pure alcohol oozing from my pores was a bit of a giveaway. Then I jumped up and scarpered off the train leaving him wiping himself down with his newspaper. Classy!

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    1. Oh. My. God. SULKY YOU DIDN'T!!!?? How awful. You poor thing. And the poor bloke!!! I would have done a runner too. Thank god it wasn't the express!

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    2. My sister once vomited in her bag and then all over a German Tourist in a bus as they were heading up to climb a volcano. She had no German, he had no English. And since she was too sick to climb to the top of the volcano, she was left sitting in the Guatemalean hills with a 12 year old wielding a pair of scissors, dressed in her rain jacket for the afternoon while the German and the bus load of tourists climbed up to the top. And then she had to sit on the bus with them for the 2-3 hours it took to come back. Vomit instances are the worst.

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  4. Ha ha ha. I am dying laughing!
    I can kind of sort of relate because once a moth got stuck in my ear and I FREAKED out! Every time that damn thing beat its wings I had a little fit...dancing and shaking my head and yelling for help. Not cool. I think I had everyone fooled into thinking I was super suave until that moment too.

    I need to win the lotto!
    I hate working for the man. I mean I don't mind my job but really? I should be getting facials and pretending to learn how to play tennis and drinking sneaky 11:00 champers with you!

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    1. EWWWWW! Oh that would be GHASTLY!
      I hate working for the man too. WHEN WILL SOMEONE DISCOVER US AND MAKE US RICH HEY? Ok I know the answer is never but A GIRL CAN DREAM!!

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  5. There are worst places have object lodged - or so I am led to believe. The moral of the story is keep calm and carry a pair of twizers.

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    1. This is true. It could have been even more awkward. Tweezers are useful for many things, inclyding when you catch sight of your chin in the window and see the sunlight reflecting off a forest of chin hairs.

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  6. That is the funniest thing I have every read!

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  7. I looked into public transport to travel from Paul's Daughters Place to Surfers for PBevent and quickly decided against it. The whole trip was going to take 4 hours! I could never travel home again in that time so I informed Paul that he would be driving me to the GC whether he liked it or not.

    I got a bug in my ear when I was pregnant, in the middle of the night. I may have screamed and kept hitting Paul until he woke up to retrieve it from my ear. It sounded like a bloody jumbo jet had decided to land on my ear drum!

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    1. I know, the public transport on the GC is APPALLING AND DISGRACEFUL!
      Oh God I would have lost it too if I had a bug in my ear. SO HORRIBLE.

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  8. Oh that's really very funny, but not for you! I used to drive an hour or so to work too and I did get very slick at downloading podcasts or at least turning to ABC radio! Commercial radio will kill you faster than the commute ;)

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    1. I have now returned to my original love of Triple J with the occasional dip back into Classic FM, but I REALLY need to get on board with books on tape. DEFINITELY.

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  9. I remember in chemistry once a ladybird flew up a girls nose ... When Miss Mac was about 3 she came and told me that Master Mac had wanted to put a bead up her nose but she wouldn't let him - I told her she was a good girl for saying no and she said 'so he put it in his ear and now he's lost it' - it took several hours in hospital and a general anesthetic to retrieve the bloody thing!

    You do make me laugh NS :-) x

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    1. Oh no the poor little boy! Emily from Havealaughonme just had a similar incident with her little man. In his sinus I think it ended up!!!

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  10. Oh shit oh dear Slapdash, what a bloody nightmare! I remember as a kid thinking I had a moth in my ear because it kept crackling for days, but it ended up being water in ears, 5 lots of grommits and 2 major surgeries later as an adult and it was just an inner problem!
    PHEW it ended up okay xxx

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    1. Oh gosh I have dodgy ears too, endless ear infections and god knows what. Almost had grommits, but was saved when I had such a bad infection that it perforated the eardrum, and drained itself that way! Painful but effective!

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  11. This was frickin hilarious woman. Brilliant. And dumber by the kilometre is going to be my new meme :D

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  12. oh gosh I don't know if it was the trains or the ear plugs that caused the most problem! Both as you say! Driving yes is so much better. Public transport does need to be improved for sure!!!!

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    1. I know this part if the world the old public transport is practically non existent!!!!

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  13. Bahahahahahaha - oh you poor thing! Thanks so much for the laugh ... I blush furiously, so it would've been a giveaway from the start. You did well to contain yourself for the whole trip. And yes - Qld public transport is the worse! My sympathies :-) Cheers, Alison #FYBF

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  14. God, that was so funny! Thanks so much for the laugh. I got the end of a Qtip stuck in my ear once, though not while on public transport thank god.
    I can also relate to the hideous commute. I spend an hour across 2 buses to get from half way to the Gold Coast over to the North Side 4 days a week and it totally sucks. I've been saying 'temporary' now for a year and a half. Thanks again.

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  15. Oh you poor love!! I'm not sure what's worse, the commute or the ear incident. Thank goodness you don't have to deal with trains any more though. I love zoning out in the car when I'm driving a long way by myself, makes a nice change from playing I Spy :)

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Vent your spleen! You know you want to.

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