7161/19681
Someone up there is really into popping my balloons.
On the eve of my 55th birthday I had spent the whole day prepping for the gig at the Phoenix and worked up a document with 65 pages of new stand up and had a look through the news for stories for me and the puppets to talk to. I’d loaded up the car and set off at around about 4pm. I’d be at the venue by 5 and have time to work some more. I was really looking forward to the gig, in spite of the heat.
All was going well and I was cruising in the fast lane of the A1 and had just passed the turn off for the M25. I was going reasonably fast, but within the speed limit, luckily. I don’t quite know what happened, but I heard a faint popping from behind me and then a flapping. I wasn’t even sure to begin with that my tyre had gone - perhaps the road surface was just a bit rumbly. But I moved across lanes and the flapping continued. I don’t really remember much about it, but I didn’t lose control of the car and I didn’t feel like I was in any danger. There was no hard shoulder and I was just the other side of the slip road down from the M25 turn off, but I had to pull over. I got out of the car and sure enough my back, right tyre was fucked.
I have lost so many tyres in the last 18 months and had in fact, been thinking about the guy who came to my house to fix the last one about five minutes before. And I’d been thinking of getting a flat tyre about five minutes before I got the last one too. I might have a very specific ability to see the future, limited to just having a feeling when I am about to lose a tyre.
I popped the rear right hand side tyre of my other car a month before I lost my right testicle, but luckily this was on the right hand side too, so I think my lefty should be safe.
This was the tyre that had gone flat just before Christmas that we’d managed to get fixed and I wondered later whether the extreme heat might have caused the plug in the tyre to melt and the tyre to self destruct. But it seems just as likely that I’d driven over something.
I wasn’t at all scared as I was pulling over - just annoyed by the prospect of another tyre to fix - but I was a bit concerned about where I’d ended up. I was in the first lane of a busy road and cars were whizzing by and every now and again a car would not see I was there in time to drive around and get stuck behind me.
I don’t have a spare tyre on the car (most new cars don’t, but with an electric car there’s nowhere to put it, unless that’s all you want in your boot. I had one of those foam kits ad briefly considered using it, before realising that it would be a) hopeless and b) that I’d have to kneel in zooming traffic and would die.
I was out of the car and over the safety barrier straight away, but chose to ring Green Flag, who I have never used, but who I have membership with via my bank account. When the lady on the phone had clarified that I was in a live line she said I had to ring someone else, but I didn’t catch who and didn’t know how I would write down the number. Eventually I realised she wanted me to ring 999. Which seemed a bit extreme, but of course there was a danger of an accident.
So I rang 999, which was pretty exciting. I can’t remember the last time I did that, if I ever have. I didn’t know who I was asking for so tried to explain the scenario, but the operator just wanted to know which service, so I guessed it was the police.
I had chosen wisely. I told the man where I was and he said he’d get someone there as soon as possible. It was boiling hot on the side of the road. I’d debated about whether to bring any water with me for the trip, but decided it was just an hour and I’d have water when I arrived.
I worried about someone piling into the back of my car, not so much for the sake of the car, but because Ally and the other puppets were in there. They could be destroyed. I wasn’t about to get them out though. Imagine the police turning up to see me and all those puppets waiting for them.
It took about ten minutes for the police to arrive and they parked up their car and set up some cones. They were nice lads and said that they’d have to call a recovery vehicle, though in hindsight it would have been better to get Green Flag back on the line. We waited for the best part of an hour. My throat was dry and I had realised that I wasn’t going to get to the gig on time. I could possibly have left my car to the pick up truck and tried to get a cab into town. But even then I might not have made it and I wanted to get my car home tonight.
So when the recovery truck arrived I jumped into the cab with the driver and we took the car to a desolate looking recovery yard on the outskirts of St Albans. I unloaded the car and took my boxes into the reception. I also had my jacket with a false arm in it and the receptionist spotted it and asked if it was mine. I said it was and she carried on as if that was almost normal.
I managed to get Green Flag to come out for the car and had been just in time to pay the £150 release fee before the man in the cabin went home. So another pick up truck eventually arrived to get me and my broken car home.
The recovery yard was a weird and fun place, full of broken cars and vans, and pick up trucks and the people who drive them. I had been gasping for water and a man carrying a couple of bottles came into reception. I asked if I could have one and would happily have paid him, but he gave to to me for free. It felt like I’d crossed a desert and found an oasis. My driver had been a burly, though sensitive and friendly man, but there seemed to be as many female as male drivers and the staff in the reception were remarkably upbeat. Had I chanced across a perfect sitcom scenario?
Possibly. I don’t think I’ll write it though.
I was annoyed that I’d not get to do my gig and sad that I’d let my audience down. But also appreciated that I was lucky that this incident hadn’t been a lot more serious. And how exciting to get to call 999 and meet some actual policemen. If only I'd had my Hitler moustache again.
Hopefully we’ll reschedule the gig for September. Sad not to get to see how the material (and the teleprompter that I’d set up on my iPad) worked!
