Lonely Writers Blog Group Forum A Day in The Life of: Fantasyf..

5AM upon awakening at such an unGodly hour, I stir and then realise the reason for awaken, need to pee.   Cat, Cuddles, is sitting on my bladder,  when I try to move her, she simply digs in her claws to let me know how unhappy I have made her.  Proceed down the stairs and do business, take tablets, then stumble back up to bed, hoping for a few more hours of sleep.  Having a cold butt doesn't help.  Before I am even able to get comfortable, Cuddles proceeds to plonk herself back into her spot on my side.  I curl up to 'radiator husband' and drop back off to noddy land.

10.15AM  Ah, awake again.  Radiator has disappeared, so has cat.   Children are away down grandparents until Friday.  Husband is dwnstairs hoovering  house, has added carpet deodorizer by the smell.  Sit on egde of bed, stretch and then proceed to make bed.  This is the first day for 2 weeks that I have awakened without a head ache,  I'm in a really good mood.  Go downstairs, wash, dress and then make first cup of tea of the day.  Cuddles proceeds to tell me she wants her breakfast and isn't going to shut up until she gets it.  Take more tablets.

10.45AM  Make second cup of tea of the day, wash up while kettle boils and do asigned washing.  Sit down to drink tea and smoke first rolled cigarette.  Knock at the front door, husband answers.  It's a man, he's asking if something belongs to husband, so get up to see what said thing is.  Surprised to find it is a little girl, about 2 years old, beautiful red hair and a cute smile.  I recongnize her but can't remember from where, and man says he found her wondering in the road, where he and his companion, think it is his father picked her up and decided to knock on doors to see where she belongs.  She seems to think she is on a big adventure and has a very smug grin on her face, unaware of the stress she is causing some poor Mother somewhere.  He decides to take her to the local police station in case someone thinks he is kidnapping the poor little thing.

10.55AM  Husband spots band of teenagers outside, looking for little girl.  Proceed to tell them where she is.  Mother catches up with them, bursts into tears and little girl tells her Mother she was going to buy herself some sweeties from town.  Mother and daughter happily reunited.  Her older brother or sister had left the front door open while her Mother was in bathroom, and she had wondered off.  She lives over back from me, so at least now I know where I recognize her from.

11.15AM  Visit other sister.  Stay there chatting and playing with neice and nephew on their new toy phones.  Play referree to the two when they begin to find and nephew decides kicking his sister is a good idea.  Niece then decides arguing with Mum and calling her mean, is an even better one.  After things calm down, drink second cup of tea there.  Go outside and smoke cigarette.

2.00PM Go home and do rolls for lunch.  Eat some more painkillers hoping that pain in knees and back will disappear with them.  Feed cat her lunch of ham and chicken.

2.45PM Cross-stitch a christmas card while watching a Series of Unfortuate Events for something to do.  Discover how awful the film is, baby is worth watching, but not much else. 

4.00PM Turn on computer.  Check mail, deleting the junk and spam, find I am unloved and have none. 

5.15PM Dye hair, red.  Hmm, looks orange but will see better in morning.  Knowing my luck it will be orange.

6.56PM Eat nann bread for tea.  Husband grills it while I tell him when it is cooked.  Not very healthy meal, but enough since I feel sick.  Drink 10th cup of tea of the day, or there abouts.  Hey, it's decaff, and I love my tea.  I am English you know.  LOL 

Spend rest of evening reading, writing, catching up with family on MSN and playing a few online games with sister.

10.30PM Do chores, washing, washing up, clean bathroom and kitchen, mop floor.  Eat more painkillers and hope for a good nights sleep without pain. 

11.00PM Go to bed where husband and I proceed to pay attention to neglected soldier without worrying about children.  They usually let us know when they are awake, open bedroom door, slam bedroom door, stomp downstairs, slam bathroom door, stomp back upstairs and slam bedroom door again, by which time soldier is no longer standing to attention and has withdrawn to retreat. 

So, there is a day in the life of me.  Unusually quiet because children are away at grandparents this week.  Not very interesting I guess, but what the hell, I enjoy it! 

Good morning FF (and all),

 I must draw attention to an egregious typo in your subject line.

To place a fine point on it, I surely am old, but I took the name "surly and old" as a less offensive handle than the full user name that I acquired years ago and with which I have grown in spiritual harmony. The story is as follows:

I was in command (word is used loosely) of a number of supervisors in a manufacturing process producing four-color press plates. This production facility operatered 24/7 including Christmas and all the lesser holidays. (The company's end product was an assortment of magazines).

My role was to develop and maintain a series of inter-related databases (I was a statistician) that encompassed the activities of every working moment of about 80 or so production workers. To do so I depended on their supervisors to enter appropriate data in a number of LAN (Local Area Network) connected computer stations at set times during the day and night. I would arrive at the plant at 2:00 AM to gather the previous day's data and produce from the array a series of charts and graphs and a trend report to present to upper management at eight o'clock.

One day someone decided to upgrade the servers that fed my data LAN. As in any such upgrade, glitches would occur and data would be lost. After a fourteen hour day spent re-creating data statistically, I instituted a policy in which all supervisors must back up their entered data into the local PC after sending it off to the LAN server. The new server continued to crash and burn from time-to-time, but all was well; I had backed-up data that I could upload to the master computer in my office.

One morning, following yet another server crash, I opened a back-up file for a certain supervisor's data and, horror of horrors, the effing thing was empty. I immediately began excoriating said supervisor's lackadaisacal attitude and behavior. He said something.

I said, "What?"

He repeated, "You surly old b*****d."

A moment of shocked silence. Then I began laughing. "You got me nailed. You're exactly right."

I had become swallowed up in the inhumanity of the plant's corporate culture and lost in my world of numbers. That phrase, uttered calmly and matter-of-factly was like the proverbial "two by four upside the head."

I subsequently left that organization and moved into consulting for other manufacturers, always with the proviso that my statistical findings would not be used to jeopardize individuals' jobs. People whose jobs became redundant because of my efforts were to be retrained for other, equivalent positions within the company.

I use the sobriquet "surlyoldbastard" for almost every internet account, including this one to remind me to not get "lost" again.

So, FF, I surely don't mind that you used the "day in the life" format, but I must take exception to the loss of "surly."

Peace and harmony,

Surly and Old