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Multi-tasking like a motherfucker (not sure that's the best simile - motherfuckers put all their efforts into doing just one thing, plus maybe trying to cover up their mother fucking, plus feeling nauseous) I got lots done today, but much of it the crazy admin of making T-shirts for people who're coming to all my shows and posting out programmes to people who donated to Scope. Or at least trying to.
I had 64 envelopes to send out, but they're all the same weight. I had to take Phoebe for a walk to get her to sleep, so thought I'd walk to the smaller post office that is further from my house, but where you generally don't have to queue for long. It would have been the perfect plan, but firstly when I arrived I had to wait a couple of minutes as a chatty woman was in front of me with lots of things to do and whilst I waited a postman exited from the back of the store, and even though he was only six feet from outside he chose this moment to do a really smelly fart (it's possible that he had done it behind the door but had dragged it with him in his wake, like a fart magnet- it's even possible that the fart was done by the woman at the counter or the old woman behind me, but I know it was him. It was a very manly fart and more than that, the kind of fart a postman would do.
I worried the old lady behind would think I was the farter and I must confess there have been times in the past where I have been guilty of this crime and got away with it. But that didn't mean I wished to be framed for a guff that I did not commit. But how did I make it clear that I was the innocent party? I wanted to waft it away with my envelope, because it was really nasty and was hanging around like an unwanted guest after midnight, but I thought that wafting would make me look guilty. Like I was embarrassed about what I was done and was trying to make things better, or perhaps that I was attempting to look innocent. And yet standing doing nothing in a fog of ass-gas would also make me look guilty as sin. Like I was wallowing in the abomination that I had created. Only the man who had given birth to this spectral bum baby would be comfortable in its vortex. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn't. So I wafted.
It was my turn to the counter within five minutes, though taking into account the extra walking time this had maybe been a false economy. At least the main post office is bigger, giving the farts of the disenfranchised of Shepherd's Bush a chance to disseminate more quickly. I got my foreign envelopes sorted out no problem, but when I told the man behind the counter that I would need 61 stamps for the UK he visibly blanched. Firstly there was no single stamp for the weight of my package (it would need a pound, a ten p, a five p and two two ps, he said) and secondly he only had a small supply of each stamp (which seemed short-sighted given he worked in a post office) and didn't have anything like the right number of 2p stamps to give me. He said I could put on two first class stamps, which would be about 8p more than I needed to pay. But that would add up if I did it 61 times and though that's only a fiver extra it didn't seem right that I should be penalised for his post office not having stamps in it.
So I ended up going to the main Post Office anyway. Of course my attempt to save time had backfired. Phoebe had got to sleep but by the time I was in the surprisingly short queue she was awake again. “Hello there, sweetie†I said to her as she opened her eyes. The man in front of me turned round sharply as if he was worried that I had been addressing him. I mean it was possible that I'd take that chance, but surely more likely that I was talking to someone else and almost certainly a child. Maybe he was disappointed I was not addressing him. It could have been the start of something beautiful. I got to the front of the queue within 8 minutes, which might be a record and this slightly smarter stamp seller realised that he could get the correct amount with a first class, a second class and a 2p stamp, which would make my life easier.
By the time I'd got home and stuck all the stamps on, I couldn't get to the post box before my gig, so they will be on their way to you tomorrow folks.
Had a fun run through of some of the bits from menage a un and Oh Fuck I'm 40 tonight. Menage a un particularly is packed with good (and very offensive) routines. Plenty of tickets left for it on Friday if you want to see it. 40 on Saturday is selling better and probably worth booking ahead for, just in case.
