By Catriona McNicol
Please, please tell me that I’m not the only person that this kind of stuff happens to, because I’m beginning to think that I’m on some sort of Truman Show.
The day started well. Unbeknown to me, it turns out that the very pleasant, but possibly mildly stoned youth who takes your orders at the drive-thru McDonald’s has come to recognise me.
“Hey, good to see you. You’re early today, one white coffee, the usual price!” he offered as he held out the contactless card machine.
Wow, I spend a lot of time and money in here. Mental note to self, “Stop this”.
I threw back some friendly comment and he said, “You’re always so happy, that’s a nice thing”. I was quite taken aback, but flattered nonetheless.
“What’s not to be happy about? I’m getting a take-away coffee! It’s my favourite part of the day”, I said, a little too jolly for pre-caffeine interactions.
His eyes narrowed and he offered a half smile, “you’re favourite part of the day is getting a drive-thru McDonald’s large white coffee? That’s not a good place to be in, dude. You gotta start living a little! On to the next window! See you tomorrow”, he said as he closed the glass divide before my eyes.
Oh. My. God. The marijuana-smoking, slack lining dude who works in McDonald’s just gave me lifestyle advice.
I chugged on in my little red car playing an old cassette that I recently found in my neighbour’s bin (this is a true story…she’s a neonatal consultant and well aware that I’ve pilfered it). Turns out it was the Beautiful South, Carry On Up The Charts, and with the sun shining down it felt like a good choice.
I rocked up at work and reversed my car in to the ‘doctor’ space outside my surgery, painfully aware of the worried looks of the patients who eyeballed my 18 year old car that sounds like a foghorn in light of the detached exhaust. I stepped from the car and dropped my doctor’s bag, the contents spilling everywhere. Why hadn’t I zipped it up? I looked like an incompetent numbnut, but I gathered it all up, scooped up my coffee and headed into battle for the morning.
The morning surgery went well. I felt in control, I did some good doctoring and I left enough time to scrape together the relevant paperwork to dash over to the other side of the city to meet with my Educational Supervisor for the much needed ES Report.
Right, got to go. I have 18 minutes to travel the 17 minutes it takes to get there. Just need my keys. My keys. Just need them.
I looked EVERYWHERE. I almost recalled my patients to look in their shoes, pants etc on the off chance that they’d been waylaid during examination. I looked upstairs, in the toilet, in the staffroom, on the stairs.
Eventually after 15 minutes of sweating I figured I should check outside around my car so I headed into the blazing sunshine to look around my vehicle. Nope. Nowhere.
What the flock was I going to do? I leant against the car wondering how I could transport myself to the other side of the city and low and behold, the wee buggers were sitting on the driver’s seat with the front door open about an inch.
Now, thankfully the good folk of the affluent North Leeds suburb in which I work must have recognised that any form of jail time for this old beat up car wasn’t worth it, and the vehicle and its contents were untouched.
I hopped in and wound down the window, pressed play on the cassette player and drove the 200 metres to Sainsbury’s. It was short but satisfying journey. I knew I was going to be late for my ES meeting but I had to eat. I just had to.
I parked up outside a pedestrian entrance to the precinct, keeping an eagle eye for any dead equine (see earlier post), wound up the window and then ran into the shop. I did a supermarket sweep (RIP Dale) and was out in no time at all.
I ran towards the small path where my car was parked just beyond and as I approached the zebra crossing, just on the corner, my life flashed before my eyes. Round the corner, at speeds way beyond those that should be acceptable for pavement based vehicles, came an elderly lady with a glint in her eye and the wildest hair I’ve ever seen.
We briefly made eye contact before she, yes true story, ran me over. I repeat, today I was run over by an old lady on a mobility scooter. As in hit by the scooter, knocked to the ground, and she ran over the end of my shoe, narrowly missing my toes.
What the actual Chuffing Nora?
I was slightly dazed for a second before I stood back up, and yes I could feel everything and nothing hurt too much. I was about to open up a can of Whoop Ass when she looked at me and said in a proper wonderful West Yorkshire accent, “oooo luv, are you ok? Ooooo, I’m so sorry. I think I was going too fast, I’m on my way to get some cat food for Neville, he’s got poorly kidneys and needs one of them reduced protein meat sachets”.
And this is my life.
Run over by a mobility scooter because Neville The Cat has got freaking CKD.
I brushed myself off, calmed the lady down and made sure she was ok before strolling back to the car thinking, “I’m totes telling the McDonald’s dude about this tomorrow. I’ll show him living life!”.
