The continuing story of bungalow bill.

So the bloke at Curry’s said that I had to ring Epson in order to get my printer fixed, so I rang on Monday morning. I spoke to Chris, who told me that he would have to see my receipt before he could arrange a call out. I presume it’s a ploy to get you to fuck off and stop bothering them. “No problem” I said, “I’ll scan the receipt and email it to you”. In fairness, about ten minutes after I emailed Chris he phoned back and told me that the engineer would come out today. I managed to get out of work at about eight forty-five and spent the rest of the day at home….waiting. At about half past two I went down stairs (we live on the third floor) to get the post. There, lying on the mat was a note, yes you guessed it “we called but you were out”. You lying bastards ! You didn’t even knock on our front door; you took one look at the three flights of stairs and thought, “fuck that mate”. Or, you were too numb to try the main door to see if it was open (which it was). I hope it wasn’t the latter, because if you can’t work a fucking door, then I think you’ll struggle with a printer. So I phoned Chris, only I can’t speak to the same person as yesterday (obviously), luckily I had the foresight to jot down the reference number that Chris had given me, so I gave Gavin the number and explained what had happened. He read from the page of the manual that tells you how to apologise sincerely, and promised the when the engineer comes on Wednesday he will knock on the door. I’ll keep you posted.

Tomorrow is day one of my two-day three-yearly First Aid refresher. These things are usually a good laugh, with fake blood and volunteer casualties. The casualties are usually retired people, or members of the Red Cross, and they relish the opportunity to scare the living shit out of you. When I originally passed the test about nine years ago, my casualty was a woman who had attempted suicide, then changed her mind. She took great pleasure in screeching down my lughole at any given moment. It’s easy to dress a wound when your patient is sat still and keeps their gob shut; it’s a whole different ball game when they cry and bleed all over the place. Last time I took the refresher I absolutely aced it, you know when you’re in the groove, and you can’t do anything wrong ? That was me, I just seemed to get the questions that I knew by heart, and my patient had a bad cut on his hand, which is my preferred bandage because it’s easy. When he slipped into unconsciousness I sussed it straight away. Even the CPR was a breeze. On Thursday afternoon we will find out if that was a fluke. I’ll probably get a head bandage on a hysterical hippy, and questions about wasp stings and anaphalaxia. I could always fake madness and run off screaming.

We just renewed our passports, £94. Ninety-four fucking quid ! Cheeky bastards. I had better look good on it for that price.