SPEAKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

It was one of those mornings, when without the aid of the tea leaves of which there are few now since it’s all bags isn’t it? When you just know that everything’s going to go wrong. My memory is selective so of course I can’t remember all that went wrong on said day but one outstanding thing is stuck there like a red wine stain on a newly loved and acquired carpet.Let me get it off my chest and give you a good laugh while you’re wondering where you put your glasses or where you’ll find the money for the mortgage.

It was before my “dog days” when I walked the streets with a white cane. I did quite well on the whole – Found the butcher’s, the baker’s and avoided the candlestick makers for obvious reasons! Yes I know we have electric lights don’t we? On my travels from here to: “not all there” I repeatedly met up with this silent sentinel who stood beside me each morning and evening as I waited to cross the road which was a trifle busy. Wanting to go on living and needing to entrust my safety to this “stranger” I asked in my sweetest voice: “Would you mind seeing me across the road”? The dumb insolence of this individual was breath taking. He didn’t reply – She may have been deaf.

Eventually a mobility instructor appeared as I needed to learn my way somewhere new and as we reached my unco-operative “friend” I heard him say:

“Make sure you cross here by this pillar box”.

Before turning as red as the box itself I disintegrated into a heap as paroxysms of laughter convulsed me, nearly making me drop my cane:

“Whatever is the matter”?”

He said:

Only over a cup of tea back at “the gnome office” the name for my abode where I do all my writing, so named because I’m so short, I told him I’d been asking for, and cursing when I hadn’t received, help from that box which I thought to be a person standing there. I’ve given up talking to post boxes now and got a guide dog. Now she helps me over the road unless it’s too busy for her to cope with in which case I hold up a little “your help welcome card”. It’s a human’s life!