Excuse my language but I am in a ruddy good mood. So much so that I can't even bring myself to blooming swear properly. I am sitting at my desk with a suntan and a smile. Life is good for no particular reason. The sun is shining, I have recently saved a tramps life (
http://tomeydmann.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/hobo-without-shotgunor-shoes.html,) I enjoy my job, I have nearly finished my book and I am hopefully soon going to be writing for a famous online newspaper. Any minute now I am expecting Zooey Deschanel to walk through the door and declare her love for me. That's how good a day I'm having. In the desk opposite me sits Callum. He is the Ying to my Yang. That doesn't mean I create peace while he invades third world countries; rather his face is a picture of absolute depression instead of my ear to ear grin. Callum and his girlfriend have had an argument. He has spent the past two nights asleep on a friends sofa instead of at home with his daughter and the girl he was planning on asking to marry next month on their anniversary. Callum desperately wants to leave work and rush over to Leanne's place and make things up with her. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen any time soon. I look at his pathetic face; always looking one Adele song away from breakdown and I can't help but feel sorry for him. I've been in that situation where you desperately want to make thing right with the one you love. I also feel partly responsible. I basically got Callum absolutely hammered the other night and when he stumbled home at 2 in the morning and woke his girlfriend and daughter up with his clanging about when she had school the next day and Leanne had an interview it was the final straw. To be fair I didn't force the tequila down his throat but I did encourage them. And as for the Jagerbombs? Well those I pretty much DID force down his throat. Either way I feel the urge to help this frail young man sitting in front of me and frankly killing my good vibe.
There is a rule in my job that if you can make the company £5,000 in one day you can leave early if you choose to. In my case this can happen twice a week. In Callums it has happened once. I am already on over 2k whereas he is still wearing his jacket and keeps looking anxiously at his phone which I haven't seen ring since I met him 2 months ago. I decide to do my good deed for the day. I go and ask the boss if Callum can go home instead of me once I hit 5 grand. He says no. Well actually he says yes if I want to give Callum my £100 daily commission which means no. So I change my tactic and ask if we make 10 grand between us can we both go early and keep the commission? He sighs and looks at me. I look into his eyes with my 'this shit's fucking important' face on (my no swearing had gone by now) and he agrees. So I go back and tell Callum that if makes £3,000 he can go early and start to try and hit 7 myself which never happens.
2 hours and 15 back breaking minutes later my total stands at £9,450 whilst Callum has done a whopping £800 himself. We gather our stuff and prepare to leave.
'Where are you guys off to with your afternoon then?' asks Ed my direct superior. Callum looks him dead in the eyes and says 'I'm going to get the love of my life back!' and dashes out of the building. Feeling I need to say something just as powerful I shout
'YEAH' a little too theatrically and promptly turn around and fall over the water cooler.
A short while later we are driving full pelt towards Callums. I am not sure why am still in the car to be honest. Part of me thinks that I want to make sure Callum and Leanne get back together whereas a small part of me knows it's really because all my other friends are at work and I have nothing to do. We get pretty close to his house when I suddenly, accidentally and unexpectedly fall completely in love. A girl is jogging on the pavement near us. She is wearing black running tights (is that what they're called?) and a pink crop top. She has her hair done up in away that my friend Rob would describe as 'Chavlicious' and looks like she could be the third fittest member of an XFactor girl group. In my first moment of madness of the day I ask Callum to pull up next to her. He does so reluctantly and I wind the window down. In these situations a man has a 94% chance of looking like
- A complete twat
- mentally unstable
- both of the above
So I have to pick my line carefully. This is how the brief conversation went.
'Where you off to?'
'Jogging'
That's cool. Do you like jogging'?
'Do you like following girls jogging and causing a traffic jam?'
'Can me and my friend buy you an ice cream la…?
And I never got to finish my brilliant ice cream chat up line (ask me if you ever see me in public girls) because Callum drove off in a hurry. Partly to do with the fact that he was desperate to see Leanne, partly because we were causing a minor pile up behind us, but mainly I suspected because I was making a dickhead out of myself.
We get to Leannes and her and Callum embrace on the doorstep making me slightly annoyed that there had been no huge fight where I stepped in like a security guard on a reality chat show. She then took his hand and led him inside shouting back at me to 'make myself at home as they had some talking to do.' I made my way inside and began to make myself at home. This became instantly impossible as no-one in my house has sex at that high a volume at 15:00 on a Wednesday afternoon. Not only that but the biscuit tin only had bourbons (which I hate) in it as well. I sat down and looked at my phone. I wasn't sure why I had come here. I could have topped up my tan in my garden. I could have been out saving more tramps lives. I could have attempted to have sex. Instead I was listening to Callum bring his girlfriend to multiple orgasm. I was happy for them but I was bored as well. It was then that I had my second moment of madness. I decided that I was going out. I was going to find the jogging girl and by god I was going to finish my ice cream chat up line. I took my top off so I was just wearing my vest, left the house and started to jog.
The problem was I wasn't sure where I was jogging to. I knew which way the lady had come from but I wasn't sure which way she was going. The problem with joggers is that they're not really headed anywhere in life. Like people who work in T K Maxx. Or the French. Nevertheless I was strangely determined and also locked out of Callums house. I saw a sign that directed me to a park and thought that was a pretty good place to start so I set off. As I entered through the tall black gates of the park I took in all the summer sights. Pensioners sitting on benches with sandwiches and the occasional thermos flask. Kids playing football with their unemployed fathers. Teenagers bunking off school smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking cheaper cider. Mums as old as 15 walking their prams in unison whilst wearing bikinis that did not fit them as their nipples and belly rolls hung out. If I'd had time to stop it would have made me proud to be English but I didn't stop. I was on a mission.
And then I saw her.
She was doing stretches by some trees. I began to jog up to her before realising two things. Firstly I was wearing shoes and work trousers and so running was going to make me look pretty stupid. And secondly I smelt pretty bad due to running in shoes trousers and a rather fetching vest I had bought from Debenhams. Still I wasn't going to back out now so I approached her and said hello. She looked at me for a moment; not recognising me without the Corsa I had previously been sitting in. Then she remembered me and I wish she hadn't. She looked at me with a mixture of fear and disgust. It is a look I unfortunately know only too well. I realised that she probably thought I had been stalking her and she was of course completely right in that assumption. Still I was not to be deterred.
'So how about you let me buy you that Ice cr..'
And then I got interrupted and had my third moment of sadness of the day.
A local newspaper had called us out with the line
'Excuse me do you mind if we take your picture?' The love of my life didn't say anything she was still looking at me in astonishment and hatred.
'Sorry it's just we're doing a spread on the summer weather and we'd like a nice picture of a young couple to go in it. You guys are a couple aren't you?'
Sometimes in life you just say things before your brain realises what is happening with your vocal chords. To the day I die I will never understand why I said the words that then left my mouth (although I assume my penis was involved in it more than my brain was).
'Yes we're a couple and we don't mind having a picture taken at all.' I'm not sure what was going through the love of my life's head at that moment but she seemed to go into concussion. Maybe she thought I had hired the press to help me scare her. Maybe she thought she was dreaming. Maybe I had actually fooled her and she thought we were a loving couple. Whatever the reason was she went along with the photo (which I will publish as soon as the newspaper is). She even gave her name for the caption. Ali. After the photo the reporters moved on to interview a teenage mum smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of Strongbow as her child played on the swings and I turned to my lovely new girlfriend ready to finally make my ice cream chat up line.
'So my lovely girlfriend. Do you fancy that Ice Cream now? I hear they do a l…'
But she had gone.
Snapped back to her senses she had turned around and continued jogging. At around 4 times the speed as before. I turned to some random old people next to me eating Cornettos.
'There goes my girlfriend Ali. Beautiful isn't she?'
And then I bought them all another Cornetto and used the ice cream line on them as it seemed a shame to waste it. They didn't get it and I headed back to Callums house where I had to wait outside for 40 minutes eating my Cornetto and listening to him and his girlfriend having the best time any one has ever had sexually before making the long trip back to my house. But at least I had a girlfriend now. Even if she hates me and I only know her first name. Compared to some of my past relationships that's probably progress actually.
Tom Eydmann is short on height, length, ideas and attention span
Medium on weight, looks, alcohol tolerance and hair length
And Long on articles, tongue and patience
Follow him on Twitter @DrTommyT25
Happy Birthday Laura
