It’s absolutely amazing how impressions that are a long way off the mark can be made - and how indelible they will inevitably
be.
Yesterday, I traded a Ford Ute for a Jag. At the trading yard I needed
to take the remaining 1% of crap that I wanted from the old car to the new one
before doing the paperwork. Stuff like the eTag, the old directory and some other items:
1) A doctor's bag. I had a birthday recently and at my request
Emergency Contact gave me an antique doctor’s bag. They are unusual in a world
full of synthetic back-packs. They are leather, which I like. They have big,
gaping mouths that make it easy to fossick around for leads and cords and PC
bits and pieces (which I do daily). They are big enough to take a laptop,
paperwork, a tablet, and sundry crapola and sturdy enough to keep all that junk
protected. They are lockable. They are uncommon and practical.
2) A walking stick. A few years ago, I fractured an ankle. I was on a
walking stick periodically for a couple of months as it mended. I haven’t used
the stick for years and had forgotten that it was rattling around under the
passenger seat of the ute.
3) Dark grey suit. I arrived at the dealership from work, wearing a
muted, conservative grey suit.
So, down at the car yard, a tall man in a grey suit,
carrying a walking stick and doctor’s bag, got out of a Ford one-tonner, walked
over to a Jag and started loading the kit into it.
They yardies stared at me, unable to decide if they were
watching the weirdest episode of All Creatures Great and Small or an elaborate car-jacking.
(I wasn’t as amused at their infernal gawping and, removing
my monocle with as much dignity as I could muster, I poked one of them in chest
with the stem of my hickory pipe and gave the unprincipled scoundrel a piece of my mind.)
No comments:
Post a Comment