The sound of my house phone calling me. A quick look at the number on the screen, and I ignored it as it was not a number I recognised. I surmised it was probably someone trying to sell me double glazing/loft insulation/tell me I had £3670 of miss sold PPI/or I could benefit from solar panels. (Pick your choice).
A few seconds later my mobile rang.
Me: “Hellooooow?”
Caller: “Hi favourite Uncle, This is your favourite Niece”
Me: “Bugger off. I haven’t got one”
Caller: “Yes you have. It’s me ****”. (name obscured to protect you from the spawn of satan).
Me: “Oh hi ****”.
****: “Dear favourite Uncle (suspicion is starting to set in), can I pretty please, come up and see you on saturday?”
Me: “Oh that would be fine, look forward to seeing you”. What time will you be up”.
****: Afternoon.
Me: Ok. See you then.
****: “Can you do me a little favour”?
I now realise I’m about to be sucker punched.
Me: “And what would that be?
****: “Would it be possible that you could take me to Gatwick on Sunday”?
Me: “What time”?
****: “6.30”
Me: “ That’ll be fine. We can have lunch and then have plenty of time to get there.
****: “No dear Uncle, 6.30 in the morning.”
Me: “That’s Ok we can get there in plenty of time if we leave here at six”
****: “No dear favourite Uncle, the flight leaves at 0630. I need to be there at 0430” .
Me: (realising the horror of it, and having been played like a pike in a pond) . Meekly replies, “OK”.
The likely outcome:
The Devil’s spawn Favourite Niece will spend Saturday night drinking copious quantities of wine on Saturday night with Mrs FE with the consequence that there will be a flat panic when the devil’s spawn Niece is having to be literally tipped out of bed late in order to have a chance of catching her flight.
The upshot is, in the near future, you will read about a driver who was banned from driving for three years for overtaking a police car on the M23, being clocked at 143 MPH.
Oh and she want’s me to pick her up on her return.
****. If you are reading this. Could I be jesting? Or not?
Do reply if you read this post.
The answer is in the tags.
I still do that to my parents as they are only a few minutes from Manchester airport! :-)
ReplyDeletePay for her to stay at the airport hotel - it'll cost you less in terms of stress and someone else will have the task of awakening her at 4am. My daughters try the same - I always say the car's broken.
ReplyDeleteYou need to add a "Niece" button to that answer phone of yours.
ReplyDeleteA few weeks back I received a very annoying automated call which I quickly terminated. The following day I heard the phone ringing as I opened the front door. Rushed to the phone, picked it up and got an automated voice. "Oh do fuck off" says I crossly as I slammed the phone down, immediately realising that it was my own answer phone that I had heard. Before I could consider who I might have upset the phone rang again. Grandson's voice said "shall we start again?"
There has been something of a theme in recent posts.
ReplyDeleteYou are clearly under-employed. Worse: everyone knows it.
Get a hobby, or invent one.
Choose one that (seemingly) takes vast amounts of time, leads to you again being 'filthy', and is particularly obscure and boring to the gentler sex. Talk about it endlessly, face to face and on the phone. Invite people to come and see you at your hobby: threaten them with the need to 'have a go'. [Blogging does not count: it's not physical enough or filthy enough, and joining in requires no visits.]
Start your search by thinking of fishing, bird-watching and steam railways. Given your background, and assuming you don't have one yet, consider buying a boat. Radio controlled drones with CCTV are also a coming thing: they can help keep the neighbours in line too.
A modest investment now will provide you with (restore you to) vast amounts of freedom in the future.
Best regards
You don't have a daughter do you? If you did, you would be used to this type of occurance by now.
ReplyDeleteNigel. comment noted.
ReplyDeleteI've just enrolled at college on the course "Build your own nuclear weapon in five easy stages".
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ReplyDeleteBill.
ReplyDeleteI managed to get rid of two daughters and thought this sort of thing would end. How wrong I was. They are probably passing the info down just to spite me!
Ah, you have it easy, FE. My two daughters fly to visit me (I'm in Southern Europe) so not only do I have the pleasure of picking them up and dropping them off at ungodly hours, but I have the added bonus of having my wallet drained for a couple of weeks while they're here.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, since Easyjet and Ryanair have started a service here, the pick-up and drop-off times have mainly become a bit more civilized, but they still sometimes turn up on a night charter.