Epiphany

The Nest started the New Year in a state of flux with four Xmas trees being squashed into a closet only big enough for two and I had to consider the awful truth that we needed more space.  I gazed out of the rear window at the threatening sky, hanging its head having been painted the colour of tin, and mulled over a dull afternoon stretching before me.  Alphonse was downstairs having embraced a fine lunchtime pint and the benefits of an afternoon nap; the Sudafed advert was playing on every channel and I'd developed a severe case of cabin fever.  Dejunking, a force that once it grips you in its thrall, it's almost primeval.  I boxed up old DVDs, CDs and the complete works of Jeremy Clarkson.  Alphonse's Argentinian football strip had to go too, only because his arms used to be skinny; they're not now.  I kept the piano of course even though neither of us play any more; it might be handy if I ever have to accompany the saxophone at some kind of soiree or outside Marks & Spencers.  When I lobbed it all in our shed that crouches in the corner of the garden, I knocked over some old paint tins and an old tin of greasy grease which had been brewing on the workbench for decades.  They also had to go too.

I felt very virtuous having started 2015 surrounded by space, and vowed to carry on by clearing my desk on my first day back at the grindstone, although my plans were thwarted by the Rota Witch who was standing, arms folded, next to my desk.  She'd left her rolling pin at home and was playing with my letter opener as a weapon of choice.  It didn't take a genius to work out she had burning issues and the body language of my three secretary chums shouted "she's all yours!"

"Why didn't you answer your mobile?"
"I don't take it into the shower.  You rang at 11.00."
"Well I need you to work this Saturday for me." This is only Monday, January 5th. "I'm not feeling well."
"But you've had two weeks sick leave over Christmas and now you're planning to be ill again when it's your Saturday."
"Yes." There's brass neck and then there's taking the Michael.
"No." I explained in single syllables.  The hospital was closed on my Saturday and I was forced to lose annual leave because I couldn't work if we were shut. "So ... No."
Her own body crumpled suggesting she'd been dropped from a great height into a pile of cacky stuff and she shuffled off, muttering.  The other secretaries looked at each other, then at me, then at the door then back to me and the least-stunned of the group ventured forth.
"Did she really just plan to be sick this Saturday?"
"Yep."
"Disgusting!"

When I finally logged on and got to work, I checked my emails and found a re-issued rota featuring my name for the coming Saturday shift that no-one wanted, sent out at 10.30 am long before she's called me.  The grovelling email to change it once more would have been funny had it not signalled more of the same.  This will be a regular feature I feel for every second Saturday when it's her turn to work Ward2 and therefore must be shifted over to someone else; preferably Raven.  So I'd had my Epiphany early this year and have started to adopt a more 'do as you would be done by' approach favoured by The Water Babies. What she doesn't know is that I've applied for a job to be PA to the Ward Manager thus duffing her out as my line manager forever.

Tip of the Beak:  When I finally staggered back to the Nest, I found Alphonse with his screwdriver poking at the oven door.
"Have you seen my tin of grease?"  Play dumb Raven, play dumb. Silence exposed my guilt.
"Well you're going to have to live with a squeaky door and don't even consider moaning when the cold gets into the driver's door on the car because you've thrown out my tin."  It was already grating like the lid of Herman Munster's front door and I was about to ask for help.  Too late.

Raven