Friday, August 8
Events That Have Happened, Possibly Chronologically
A few days away from a computer never did anyone any harm. Except those that are addicted to computers. I would wholeheartedly include myself in that group. I seem unable to sleep at night if I haven't got near a computer during that day. It's always the days that I don't get near a computer that my mind is buzzing with ideas and things to do when I do get on a computer. Anyway, enough of that, I'm here now faithful reader(s), prepare for an epic journey into the last 3 days of my life. And when I say "epic," I actually mean "slightly interesting." You have been warned. I'll continue in a roughly chronological order, but be prepared for some foreshadowing and referencing to later dates. I'm rambling, aren't I?
Wednesday
Wednesday started off like any normal day, in that I rolled out of bed around midday, to be confronted by my parents wanting to "talk." You should know by now that these "talks" are in fact lectures and excuses to generally moan at me. This time it was concerning the fact that I hadn't been socialising with my parents at all for the past week or so. I can't help it, I just prefer my own company. My Dad left to go shopping or something, and my Mum tried to do the "What's wrong with you?" thing. 101 questions followed: "Have you fallen out with your mates?"; "Is there something you're not telling us?"; "Are you having second thoughts about university?"; and so on and so forth. My answer to all of these was "no," because that's the truth.
My Mum was getting a little exasperated at this point, and straight out asked me why I don't choose to spend time with them, and prefer not to be in the same room as them. I thought "fuck it," and said what had been going over and over in my mind for the past 3 to 4 months. "I find you boring. I find you repetitive. I find your conversation topics dull and uninteresting. I don't share your tastes in TV programmes. I find you hypocritical and two-faced." In retrospect that was a bad idea. My Mum was initially upset and vanished upstairs. I went up to get washed and dressed, and she burst into my room, shouting and bawling at me. She then turned to my CD stacks and said "How's this for dull and boring?!" followed by her thrusting some of my CDs onto the floor, snapping them and breaking the cases left, right and centre. Check Evidence A. Oh yeah, this was preceded by hitting me on the shoulder, I forgot about that. She doesn't hurt when she hits like that, it's just her letting out raw emotion.
Anyway, by breaking my CDs she really set me off. I was in tears, angry tears, and it took all of my self-control not to swing out at her. I also somehow refrained from punching the door of my wardrobe, for reasons I'm not entirely certain of. I threw on some clothes and stormed out of the house. This was the hottest day of the year, yet I walked along the canal near my house for a couple of hours, still in rage for the first half-hour or so. I planned this slightly, by stopping off at a newsagents on the way to the canal to buy a big bottle of water. A very, very good idea, due to the heat that was everywhere around.
Mum rang me on my mobile after about an hour, to tell me that the results of my blood test were in at the Doctor's surgery. This was a blood test I had to determine whether I had Glandular Fever or not. She couldn't get the results, since I was over 16 or something, so I rang up and found out that the test was negative, which meant I didn't have Glandular Fever. I was relieved at this, since I didn't particularly fancy being laid up for 3 months doing fuck-all. My Mum had asked me to ring her back straight away, but I left it a few minutes, just to let her get worried. I'm a bastard, I know.
After that, I walked for a bit more, up this ridiculously big hill for no apparent reason. By this stage, I was a good 6 or so miles from home, and it was just after 2pm. I couldn't be arsed to walk back, so I took my parents up on the offer of a lift back to the house which they had earlier given me. My Dad came and picked me up, and we drove back in a stony silence. Then it was time for a proper "talk." Again, I mean a lecture...
This time my Dad dropped the ultimate bombshell on me: either I find a job within the next week, or they will kick me out of the house for good. I agreed to this (what else was I supposed to do?), and went upstairs to brood / mull it over.
The phrase "life-changing" is thrown around a lot these days. This, however, was a truly life-changing decision. For the past week or so, I hadn't been working, mainly because I'd been pretty ill, but partly because I just didn't want to. I'd had enough of doing shit jobs and wanted out. It was with this in mind that I seriously contemplated taking them up on the threat of kicking me out. I guess I'm too proud / stubborn to go back to doing these shit jobs. This wasn't one of those teenage "my parents hate me so I'm going to leave them forever" thoughts. This was a serious option for me. I began having these ideas about what to do and where to live for the next 5 weeks before I move into my student accomodation with the other guys. A little 1-bed place in London would do me fine.
I popped out that evening to go play some snooker with a mate of mine, which he beat me at, the bastard. And that was Wednesday.
