Give Me Enough Rope
Being one of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's senior managers in Scotland, you'd think my colleagues would treat me with just a little bit of respect. I'm not talking about anything over the top, but perhaps they could bow or salute when I pass them in the corridor - that sort of thing. A little fawning wouldn't go amiss either.
Unlike this morning when I got an e-mail from a colleague in Glasgow asking me if I was planning to drive south this week. When I confirmed that I would be doing that very thing tomorrow afternoon he then arranged for his Mother-in-law to deposit two bags of overdue Christmas presents at the reception desk in Inverness.
"Oh...and could you take two bags back to Inverness with you?"
Just for a second I suspected this whole thing might be a set-up and that I was being duped into ferrying illegal substances around the country. Who knows, maybe those jars of peaches in brandy have been outlawed by the Scottish Executive since I last checked. Oh, and I hope that hasn't ruined the surprise for anyone.
Not that my family show any more respect for my position. There I was at my desk this morning, making big important decisions about, oh, all sorts of stuff when Mrs Z called to ask me if I'd found those instructions for the clothes pully.
There's a back story here involving a weekend visit to an Inverness hardware store. Having asked to purchase a wooden clothes pully I was a little disturbed when the shop assistant then collected the various compents from different plastic tubs and dumped them on the counter.
"There's your cast iron cleat, your laths, single pulley, double pulley and airer ends..."
I felt like I was in an episode of The Krypton Factor.
"any instructions with that?" I asked, nervously.
He gave me a reassuring nod, pulled the pencil from behind his ear and scribbled out a diagram showing ropes going up and down and across. It looked like the preliminary drawing for the Forth Bridge, but I pretended I understood perfectly.
I was at it for three hours last night, but no matter how I configured the rope, I could only ever make one side of the contraption rise or fall. The usual solution in such cases is to go on the internet and print out an idiot's guide to things-every-real-man-ought-to-know..
Of course, we're still without a broadband link at home, so I promised to do that at work today. After more than a decade of marriage, Mrz Z knows how easily I can be distracted by other office activities - such as trying out the new paper shredder - hence the phone call to remind me.
"Don't worry, " I told her, "I wouldn't have forgotten."
"Pull the other one, " she retorted. Which was almost funny.
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