Michael and the Lollipop

Michael has another in a long list of bad days. Life just isn't fair to some people.

Michael sat down in the middle of the road and began to cry. Ordinarily I would have laughed, but this was clearly the most depressed he had been since the time his brother Fred went to the car wash and never came back. I stopped and thought for a minute about what to do next, still caught between laughing and empathising. To understand why, I’ll have to take you back a few hours.

It was not a well thought out road trip. First of all a road trip is a difficult thing to do when the only person you know that can drive, is too busy shacking up with the local petrol station’s rotund manageress, to be interested in, you know, actually driving. This had upset Michael far more than seemed appropriate. So his brother was having a little roly-poly fun, big deal. So Michael’s 45 and has never had any of that sort of fun with anyone, get over it. Clearly it was time to get Michael back on the horse, especially since that may well have been his best chance to procreate.

Still, a road trip Michael wanted, and so a road trip it would be. We started by trying to hitch-hike up the M40 figuring we'd let fate decide where we would end up. As it turns out, fate seemed pretty much dead set on us staying exactly where we were. Four hours had gone by and the closest we had come to a lift was the terrified glances of passing motorists as they drove down the slip road beside us. Let me explain.

Michael is 45, and doesn’t look a day under 60. Both of us have been carefully cultivating that biker look that plays well in rocker bars when you’re 20, but may not be the best approach for middle aged men trying to get people to let them into their town, let alone their car. And, I not only have an obvious limp, but also a fairly pronounced hunch to my back. We must have looked like Billy Connolly and Notre Damn’s finest seeking out potential victims. Options were limited however, lacking the funds for public transport meant if we wanted to get somewhere this would be how we’d have to do it.

Eventually, someone was either bored enough or stupid enough to pick us up, it didn't take long to work out which. Clearly at this point the very act of stopping beside us provides a likely clue as to the driver's IQ and social worthiness. The oddly large purple lollipop that she had shoved into her mouth only drove home the notion. Predictably though, Michael had fallen immediately and irreconcilably in love. This was a real-life woman after all, living, breathing and potentially, insane enough to pay him attention.

The first hour was the worst. The woman (who’s name appeared to be ‘Wvndy’ by the way) was only too happy to talk. Unfortunately since she seemed reluctant to remove the lollipop even during this activity, it resulted in whomever was closest to her being showered in a rain of palma-violet flavoured spittle. I was very happy to have sat in the back, despite the lack of seatbelts, or come to think of it a rear window pane. It was painfully funny to watch this seemingly ageing biker pretending to be interested in whatever abstract topics that this deranged woman could spray out of her mouth. My own amusement had turned to a vague and ill-defined terror around the time she described the 'autopsy' she had carried out on her hamster. Call me melodramatic, but I couldn't help wondering whether or not the thing had been dead when she started.

By the third hour, it was dark. We were somewhere in Oxfordshire (having lost the will to breathe shortly before this point, I am unable to be any more specific). Now, and this is an important point from my perspective, Oxfordshire is very sparsely populated in some areas and as a consequence extremely poorly lit. So it came as something of a disappointment to Michael when Wvndy suddenly broke off her story about guinea-pig number eleven and all of its various veterinary concerns, skidded to a halt and announced we had to get out.

As a veteran of social rejection, I didn’t ask too many questions. Frankly this was a relief since earlier in the conversation she had alluded to having dogs, cats and an owl, frankly I was concerned she may take us through their individual biographies and biologies as well. Michael though was devastated. This was the closest he had come to contact from the opposite sex in what must have been years, and he could see his chance slipping away. Whether he saw the opportunity to fail harder as a challenge I will never know, but for some reason he chose to announce to our chauffer his undying love - think nervous and desperate teenager with a speech impediment.

Please don’t misunderstand me. This woman was patently madder than a frog in an 8 year old’s pocket, but credit where credit’s due, she knew when to get the hell out of Dodge. Shoving him roughly out of the passenger door, she drove off without even closing the thing. Now that’s rejection.

Personally, I found this highly inconvenient on the grounds that we had been marooned in the middle of the countryside on a very dark, very cold and very wet night. But, for Michael it was much worse, this was yet another slap in the face. One more occasion when his hopes had been crushed. He was not a man who considered he had just sidestepped an axe murdering. Instead of brushing it off and calling the local asylum to inform them of an escapee, all he could do was sit in the road and cry.

Reviews

[dopey]

Loved the characterization of this woman. She seemed quite funny to be with her in-and-out behaviour, as well as the lollipop too :)

[Ania L]

Such an engaging story. I love your writing style which is easy to read, endearing but packed full of details and witty notes. Love that we have used the same stimuli and arrived at totally different ideas!

Looking forward to more x