I am brutally hauled from a
state of nasal-cadenced torpidity by the radio alarm at 5.45am, tuned by a
bed-sharer of less discerning musical taste to a station specialising in
soul-less mid-80’s plastic rock and fatuous chatter from some treacle-voiced
buffoon. Cleverly, she has contrived the
environment to ensure that the snooze button is within MY arm’s range rather
than hers. But the neurotransmitters are
so numbed by this assault on their sensibilities, that they require several
minutes’ exposure to the trauma before kicking back into function mode and
sending that vital message to my arm to turn the fucking thing off.
I pour milk onto my
layered cereal breakfast of mini-Weetabix with chocolate bits and Cookie Crisp
(also with chocolate bits). This is the
preliminary kitchen task, allowing time for the kettle to boil and the Weetabix
to evolve from their primitive paving stone consistency into something molten
enough to suck through the gaps in my teeth – not that I choose such a method
of eating - while I make myself a chocolate spread sandwich to take to work. I dine on my soggerizing cereal combo in
front of the telly, either appalled by the crassness of BBC Breakfast and its
twee and odious assemblage of offensively unoffending presenters or embarrassingly
pleasured by the nostalgic indulgence and mind-gum plot development of New
Dallas, which I Sky+ each Wednesday.
I don’t like to rush. My mental balance is kept in equilibrium if I
am in the bath within 15 minutes of 6.58am.
(It used to be 6.55am, thus providing a wash’n’dry window of five
minutes before waking the kids at 7.00am.
But I have rebelliously waged war at this deadline until in a
Castro-esque time-coup I seized for myself three additional minutes.) This pocket of undisturbed, hot-water-swaddled
meditation consists of a long, scornful stare at Twitter on my phone, leading
me to despair of the creative void that is evident in human web-based interactions
at this time of the morning.
Yes, I lie in the bath
with my phone in my hand. I have never
dropped it. I am the fucking KING of not
dropping my phone in the bath EVER and by far more skilful at this than anyone
you will ever meet in your whole life.
When there is evidence
that my children’s sleep pits have been evacuated and their own morning
routines are underway, I choose a CD for the journey and get into my Vauxhall
Astra and drive to work. My journey is
the exact same time as side one of an album.
I know that CDs don’t have sides, so let’s say it is the exact same time
as half a CD. Half a CD of an album of
optimal length, that is. About 40
minutes. All albums should be 40 minutes
in total. Anything more is perverse.
I am in some ways an
adventurous spirit. My veins teem with
spontaneity. I never know which one of
two enticing routes I will take to work until I reach the point where I can
turn off one onto another. In most other
respects though, my drive is relaxing and without event. Especially now that I have mastered my Car-Tourette’s
and inadvisable over-reactive and aggressive counter-provocation when encountering
your average bullying cunt of the road.
A couple of occasions when car-emergence and likely physical confrontation
with such rogues almost reached fruition have led me to reflect that I am not
actually able to beat up EVERYONE else and would therefore be wiser to cease
the more fight-inducing behaviours that I have exhibited for over 20 years. I haven’t quite gone cold turkey on this
road-rage heroin, but I am safer sticking to the methadone approach of simply
slowing down to the speed limit when an impatient and aggressive cunt is
tailgating me and allowing him to suffer the inconvenience of my admittedly
smug and sanctimonious passive-obstructive protests. No wanker signs required.
Thus I get to work
unmolested. I am imbibed with half an
album of my own choice, songs that have put pay to the Bon Jovi brainwashing I
had 1 ¾ hours before, and I go to my office having stuffed the Nutella-filled wholemeal
bread package into the staffroom fridge.
The beautiful routine of my mornings is now terminated by the job.
(to be continued…)
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