Dangerously Curious

We've all done it haven't we? Yes, you have. Haven't you? Just me then.

A week or so ago, being bored - and dangerously curious, I put my car registration number in webuyanycar.com to see what they would value my car at. This moment marks a change in my life - a few years ago being 'dangerously curious' in front of a laptop would have taken to me to a much more different site than a car valuation one.

Anyway, they came back with an expectedly low amount - any car company who is going to be selling on your car in the future will never give you the true valuation of it, as they have a profit to make. And, I've also discovered that there is a different downside to being 'dangerously curious' than there used to be, as I am now faced with a picture of my car with their value in large figures next to it on one of their adverts, on a lot of websites I now go into. I've seen it that much that I'm half expecting their adverts to be transposed into my dreams now.

Yesterday, I received another email from them entitled 'Great news, your car has increased in valuation'. 'Brilliant' I thought - 'my car has increased in value without me actually doing a single thing' other than being exposed to a zillion adverts. I checked. It was about £300.

Maybe if I leave it another 3 years, they might get a bit closer to what the value of the car actually is.

Car Crash Gym

Monday night at the gym was a nightmare. The gym is a 15 minute walk from my house, but it took me that long to park the car, yeah I know I should be walking but it was cold and wet and the last thing I want to do is extend an hour session at the gym - that I don’t want to do in the first place - by another 30 minutes of exercise. That’s the kind of complication that would just make me not bother at all, so basically knackers to that. Although I can officially confirm to all media outlets that I will be journeying by bike from now on (weather/being arsed dependent).

The 2^nd Monday of the year will now forever be known as ‘Car Crash Monday’. The exact moment in time when this years New Years Resolutioners meet last years New Years Resolutioners - who came for 4 weeks but paid for the whole year, and think they’d better at least show the effort - and collide with the regulars who haven’t been since New Year for fear of it being packed, in a perect storm of sweat, lycra and odd smells that you never actually smell anywhere else.

In the week between Christmas and New Year I was actually the only person in the gym at one stage, this either makes me very sad or very dedicated - or a high octane mixture of both. I did allow myself to dream that it was my own private gym occasionally – except that I probably wouldn’t need 12 running machines. On Monday night, I wasnt even the only person in the square foot that I was standing, let alone the only person in the gym.

By the way, if a smell that you smell in the gym all year round is also there when you’re the only one in the gym, does it mean that its you?

Leaflet shit

I don’t really read the things that I should: from ‘best before’ labels on dairy products, to letters from the council. I see them, but because they’re not immediately important to me, because they don’t have an immediate impact on my life, because I’m happy enough in my own world - then in my mind, there’s no point concerning my already overworked head with them.

I once answered a knock on the door to be greeted by a man identifying himself as a bailiff. Apparently I hadn’t paid my council tax and he was there to duff me up/sell my functioning internal organs/do whatever it is that bailiffs do.

After paying him, I contacted the council to find out why they hadn’t told me about this. To which I was informed very politely that they had infact sent me lots of letters about it.

“Don’t be so ridiculous” was my response “I’m not an idiot, if I had received them I would obviously have opened something so important and read....ahhhh”

I stopped as I remembered the pile of stuff that I don’t read, hidden away under the coffee table. In that pile I discovered about 10 letters from the council, each getting progressively more insistent, culminating in a letter that essentially ended with a ‘bollocks to you then, see you in court dickhead’ crescendo.

A court appearance that I didn’t attend, because I hadn’t seen the letter telling me to, because it was under the coffee table.

Anyway, one of the other items that I don’t read are Wheelie Bin collection leaflets. It’s far easier for me to peer out of the window on a Monday evening and see what colour bin the people on the street have put out, than it ever will be reading the leaflet and keeping it in a safe place, and then remembering where that safe place is. That sounds like someone elses hell.

Except, over the Christmas period it all gets a bit confused because the day changes from Tuesday to another day, which I will have been informed about in the leaflet, that is somewhere under the coffee table, that I haven’t read.

On Tuesday this week my bin had become so full that I thought that it was better to just stick it out the front of the house, to be sure that I wouldn’t miss the collection day, whenever it was. I had no clue when collection day was, I just knew that I didn’t want to miss it when it was.

10 minutes later, the rest of the street had all wheeled their bins out. The same colour as mine. I imagined that everyone else on the street was thinking how organised I was for knowing when the collection day was. This satisfied me.

Except that no collection lorry turned up the next day. I saw people on the street walk up to their bins, open them up, look confused that it hadn’t been emptied, walk up to someone elses bin, open that up and see that it hadn’t been emptied either. The look on their face then was an ‘I’m really, really confused now/thank God its not just my bin’ hybrid.

You know that look. Yeah you do.

What I’d actually achieved made me very proud. Not only had I’d started my own false Wheelie Bin chain, but I'd exposed everyone else for being as leaflet shit as I was.

Wheel idiot

Bumped into my friend Carl in the newsagents. Havent seen him for about 5 years.

"Bloody Hell Watski, how are you - havent seen you for ages" he shouted across the shop. "The last time I saw you, you'd been messing around at football and had smashed your wrist to bits and had operations and nights in hospital"

"Yeah, Carl - I'm never going back there. I cant even think about it without cringing inside - it was a right royal pain in the rectal passage if I'm honest. I dont know how I managed for 8 weeks" I moaned.

"Yeah, must have been a nightmare" said Carl. From his wheelchair.

Return of the Ma(r)ck

Well..well...well.

This place hasnt changed one bit. Apart from the fact that I'm a bit older, wiser and generally more lethargic and grumpy than I could ever have been accused of in the past. This, I believe, is a positive thing.

I also used to have lots of virtual friends in this place - virtual people who were much funnier than me - who have probably given up unsuccessfully virtually calling for me and found new, better, funnier virtual friends to hang out with. It was pure virtual altruism on my part, I virtually did it all for you. To virtually make you better virtual people.

I am also, now a technological magician. I spent 20 minutes trying to remember the password for this place - chuntering, complaining, moaning, throwing things - and that was just to myself. I was just about to give up when I summoned everything that I had into one problem solving thought. Yes, I used a different email address to log in. As I speak Wikileaks are headhunting me for some secret mission they have planned, that involves only those with lightning speed of mind and technological prowess.

So here I am, remind me what I'm supposed to do now.