10.45 Adventures

I live in a small town. A town so small that at 10.45 on a Saturday night, there is scarcely anything open but pubs and the odd restaurant that hasn’t quite managed to shift its last patrons yet. This is not good when I have just vacated one such restaurant, (my place of work), and I feel like I’m about of to keel over from some sort of amalgamation of swine flu, man flu, the common cold and some new fangled illness that makes you very sweaty. Of course, by the time I get home, there’s no loo roll or tissues left, no provisions of any kind for a cold in the cupboards or fridge, and I used my last two Solpadol getting through the last 3 hours of work in some of the hottest temperatures of the year. I’m dying, or at least I feel like I am. So, at this purportedly ungodly hour (according to Lanark), reserved only for drinking and dining, I muster my last reserves of energy and scramble on to facebook, hoping one of my two hundred or so contacts will know where to find cold medicine. No such luck. 

Darroch and I set off, determined to find a solution. 

Luckily, it comes in the form of the shell garage, which, upon close inspection, sell both Nurofen, AND Benylin! Jackpot! But no tissues, loo roll, or disposable wiping utensil of any kind…. Desperate, and sniffley, I soldier on, and sink to the lowest, scabby reaches of my being. I had no choice. I’m not proud of it. But I’m eighteen, and absolutely did not want to look like the skanky 5 year old, whose equally skanky mother has not yet taught him to blow or wipe her nose, and whose cuffs are crispy from dried bogeys. 

I shall set the scene, there is a public toilet just near our flat. One of the scary electric sliding door kind, that in your worst nightmares, you imagine you are sitting mid wee wee, when all of a sudden, the doors say “hmmmmmmmmm” and slowly open up to reveal you in all your glory to the drippy alcoholic waiting outside, and you would then have to wiggle, trousers round your ankles, to re-press the close door button. 

However, despite its many flaws, and the fact I’d probably never utilise it for its intended use, it is quite well kept and therefore holds within it the holy grail… Toilet roll! It may be the consistency of newspaper, but toilet roll it is, and I rolled about 20 metres of this paper gold and shoved it in my shell poly bag of treasure, for the bargain price of 20p. 

Happy times :)