Warming Up

Wednesday 23rd March 2022

Ill and scatterbrained, but still not so ill that I was able to spend the day resting in bed. Oh how I miss having testicular cancer, which was my only excuse to have a rest in the last seven years. I am significantly more poorly than I was when I had Covid. In fact after a couple of notifications that I'd been in the same room as someone with Covid (hardly surprising as everyone has it and I was in a spare with over 400 people on Monday) and feeling tired and lousy all day, I did a test. It was as negative as could be. The empty space where a Covid line would have been shone more brightly than ever. Whatever I had just came from bugs picked up from school and me pushing myself too hard. Damn, I came so close to another five days in bed. But to be fair my son has whatever I have, so it would be five days of looking after him on my own. Which is the worst possible scenario.

I took the kids to drama, a fun two or three hours where I mainly spend time with one of them, whilst the other does their class. I'd forgotten their T-shirts and snacks (and as it turned out their costumes for their dress rehearsal) so after picking them up from school I headed back home, got the shirts and crisps (but not the costumes) and then drove to our usual car park. It costs about £1.50 to park there at this time of the afternoon and I usually do that on my phone as soon as we park up, but today, fuggy-brained and distracted I forgot. So returned to the car to find a ticket for £50 on the windscreen. It's £25 if I pay fast (which obviously I will do), but this seems to me to be a tax on the tired and absent-minded. No one is thinking - hey if I gamble here I might save myself the price of half a cup of coffee or a drop of petrol. The only people who are being caught out at 3.45pm are those with brains feeble form exhaustion or with actual issues with their brains that make them forgetful. It's a tax on tiredness and illness and that doesn't seem fair. If I rang them up and argued the toss and pointed to weeks upon weeks of me paying the £1.50 on the app, would they relent? It doesn't seem worth the effort of trying, because I am pretty certain that it would take many hours and that their answer would be, nope, we got you, trying to cheat the system. You tried to steal parking from us and now you must pay,.

C'mon I clearly just forgot because I was ill and hadn't slept and had two kids vying for my attention and was trying to work out which water bottles and bags and T shirts I needed with me.

You are a criminal and your reign of terror is over.

My one week reign?

You are the Lady Jane Grey of crime.

That's a niche reference.

Oh don't assume that just because I work in an office doing the admin about parking fines that I am not educated. You just have to pay £25 for your error, I mean deliberate crime. I have to work here forever. There are no windows. Everyone who calls in angry or crying or thinking that I am the bad guy.

You are the bad guy.

My only crime is doing a job that I hate. You have parked illegally and you are lucky that this time it's only a fine and you're not looking at a prison term.

Have some compassion.

I am paid to have none.