Something indescribably traumatic happened to me on Wednesday. It was so utterly, totally, unmentionably horrific that I can only now begin to bring myself to write about it. And it’s nothing to do with the fact that I’d forgotten about it up until now, honest.

I left my wallet at work.

I’m prepared to concede that this, in itself, isn’t much of a problem. The problem – the horrible, gutwrenching, terrible nub of the entire matter – was that I found out I’d left my wallet at work just after putting 20quids worth of unleaded in the car, at a petrol station 25 miles away from my office.

Imagine: I’m already a bit late for work, so I dash out of the house. Getting in the car I realise that I’m not going to get very far unless I stick a few cracked alkanes in the tank, so I pull into the petrol station just down the road from my house and fill ‘er up. As I’m walking towards the counter to pay, I do the traditional pocket pat-down to locate my wallet, and very quickly ascertain that something is amiss. I walk calmly back to the car, assuming that it must have fallen out of my pocket and would be sat there on the car seat waiting for me. No such luck.

Cue, therefore, much grovelling to the guy behind the counter, to whom I assure that I must have left my wallet at home (at this time, I knew not that it was sitting happily on my desk at work) and if he could just let me go and get it, I would return with payment. He agreed, took my registration number and I tore off to retrieve my wallet.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent that my wallet was not, in fact, at home. A quick phonecall to work confirmed this. Now I was really stuck. Casting around desparately for ideas, I decided that my only option was to drive to work, retrieve my wallet, drive back to the petrol station, pay and then drive back to work again – not ideal, but so far as I could see, the only option.

And then, my saviour arrived in the shape of Shaun, one of the other residents. Just as I was leaving the flat, he emerged to check his post. A flash of inspiration hit – begging time again: “Shaun, this is really embarassing, but I don’t suppose you’ve got twenty quid I could borrow, have you?”. And, hallelujah, he did. I had cunningly shifted the debt from a corporate and potentially criminal one to a personal and much more amiable one. Hurrah, indeed.

So, I paid the man at the petrol station (who I am convinced then overcharged me, but as I can’t remember exactly how much petrol I put in, I can’t rightly argue with him) and sped off to work.

Anyway, it was traumatic. And it very nearly spoiled my enjoyment of Return of the King. But it didn’t, and for that I am very greatful.

(does the word ‘nub’ make anyone else think of nipples?)

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2003 at 11:20 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.