Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing

A gentle afternoon hanging out in west Devon, doing a spot of bouldering and recklessly endangering ourselves with a spot of longboarding. Mikey, master of all things outdoorsy and risky, showed us how it was done:


Although our attempts were but a pale shadow of the master, both E and I manage to hold on to our nerve long enough to make it to the bottom of the straight track. Although unlike everyone else — all apparently completely fearless — we both balked at the hard left turn down yet another hill that took them off through one of the farm buildings. We also declined to start from the top of the hill on the main road — something to save for a more suicidal session — but that didn't stop it from being good fun and didn't do anything to strip away our feeling of achievement...

Having had a better day than yesterday, I ditched work on the dot and went bouldering. I managed to finish a couple of new problems, one on my second attempt — I should have done it first time but for failing to spot a particularly obvious hold — putting me ahead of my overall score for the second round.

However on the way home, I was almost knocked down by someone attempting to accelerate through a pedestrian crossing — which, given that it it right next to a roundabout, is clearly an act of dangerously incompetent driver. Fortunately they slammed on the brakes and I dodged far enough out of the way to avoid any actual contact but I couldn't help noticing I was disturbingly close to their bonnet when I gave them benefit of my very best what-the-fuck-is-your-problem expression...

Today's classic comment from a colleague: "I hope X will let me take a day off to go to the dentist. I've got a slight toothache and I don't want it to get worse. Someone else had a problem and it turned into an abscess before they had time to get it treated..."

Midway through this morning's kaffeeklatch, I started to develop the deep conviction that I was supposed to be elsewhere. I checked the calendar on my phone. Nothing. I charged my memory for an account of my appointments. Nothing. And yet. And yet. I couldn't shake off the growing paranoia that I was supposed to be elsewhere. Eventually I gave in to my anxieties, made my apologies to doctor_squale and returned to my desk where I discovered that I'd somehow confused yesterday morning's meeting with today... Typical.

Cosmopolitan barbecue and Just Dance party chez doctor_squale. I managed to avoid the dancing — I'm so appallingly badly coordinated that my (thankfully rare) attempts at dancing usually end with things being broken and a trip to casualty — but others were much (MUCH) less restrained.

Slightly against my better judgement I've moved a whole load of reading materials from their previous storage location — a couple of teetering shoulder high stacks in front of the TV — and piled them up on a previously under-used shelf above the desk, thus exchanging the risk of death by book avalanche for death by catastrophic shelf collapse.

I sleep well. I sleep the sleep of the just. I am level-headed. Logical. Unflappable. Good in a crisis. Unafraid of things that go bump in the night. But early this morning, I found myself beset by the strangest attack of the horrors.

Woken unexpectedly, I found myself convinced that there was a Nameless Horror in the living room. After a few minutes, I was able to gain enough control on my paranoia to make it to the bathroom. But, once there, my fears multiplied again leaving me all but paralysed by indecisiveness. Eventually reason won out and I was able to persuade myself back to bed. But I didn't make it back without switching on all the lights to check and checking all the corners for eldritch terrors.

All very uncharacteristic. I blame Charlie Stross. I'd rather unwisely started reading The Fuller Memorandum just before bed and something obviously took up residence in my cranium. Something squamous and rugose and with an enthusiasm for non-Euclidian geometry.

Tonight I'm taking no chances. I'm going to be sleeping with my copy of Practical Combat Epistemology, a violin close to hand, just in case a possessed Uncle Fester lookalike should really happen to drop by around the turn of midnight...

I had been having a reasonably successful day. I had an enjoyable run first thing. Work went well. I arrived at the stop just in time to catch my bus home. I managed to fit in a decent swim.

But. Because there's always a but.

When I got out of the water, I discovered my locker key was gone. Fallen off its rubber band. I retraced my steps and searched the floor of the lane I'd been using. Luckily one of the other regulars offered to help and quickly found it for me. Kudos. He was especially pleased because he done it without glasses.

Key safely recovered, I went to get changed. In the process of fetching my stuff, I managed to hit my head on the door of my open locker. Very much an injury on top of an insult. But I seem to have survived largely unscathed, excepting a minor, painless lump on my scalp. I don't even have a headache. Perhaps I should be grateful.

I'd assumed that no-one in the right mind would want to eat a Manchester egg — a potent combination of picked egg, black pudding and breadcrumbs. But I was wrong. I made a throwaway remark about it to one of my colleagues, only to discover mere minutes later, they'd already formulated a plan to try and some shipped down to Devon.

I fear I might just have ruined my colleague's health forever.

On the evidence, I suspect that Stross might be reading my mind. Or at the very least, following me around with a notebook:

All bureaucracies obey certain iron laws, and one of the oldest is this: get your seasonal leave booked early, lest you be trampled in the rush.

I broke the rule this year, and now I’m paying the price. It’s not my fault I failed to book my Christmas leave in time—I was in hospital and heavily sedated. But the ruthless cut and thrust of office politics makes no allowance for those who fall in the line of battle: "You should have foreseen your hospitalization and planned around it" said the memo from HR when I complained. They’re quite right, and I’ve made a note to book in advance next time I’m about to be abducted by murderous cultists or enemy spies.

I'm never going anywhere without my tinfoil hat ever again...