We are trying to find a dinner date. Emails are flying back and forth as people suggest dates and people (not always other people- some of us are not really on top of our diaries) reject them. We are trying to find a dinner date because our dinner last week fell apart because I was dying.*
‘This is ridiculous,’ I said to my colleague. ‘It is simply impossible that 4 people can’t find a time to have dinner together before January. No one’s that busy.’ My colleague nodded and mumbled something incoherent about ‘having to work’, but I bumped into him later and had a more in-depth conversation.
We were in the men’s toilet.
‘What are you doing here?’ He yelled when he saw me. ‘This is the men’s toilet.’ ‘Yes,’ I replied calmly, nudging him to the left. ‘Someone has jammed the cold tap in the ladies, so I’ve come here to wash my hands. Regular hand washing drastically reduces your risk of illness. Have I told you about my recent brush with death?’
My colleague was silent, so I continued our earlier conversation. ‘I wonder which of my friends isn’t prioritising our dinner?’ I asked him thoughtfully, leaning over him to grab a paper towel.
My colleague had left by this time, noticeably without washing his hands (apparently he ‘no longer wanted to wee’ once he had the pleasant surprise of me joining him in the toilet), so I began composing a sternly worded email to my friends. I touched on love, loss and the importance of prioritising eating with me over eating with other people. Suddenly, an email popped into my inbox. ‘What about next Monday?’ A flurry of acceptances followed. I checked my diary with growing alarm. ‘I can’t go,’ I wailed to my colleague.’It is absolutely awful how busy we are these days.’ He stared at me for a moment. ‘Well,’ He said slowly. ‘Some of us are.’
*A future blog post on my brave and self-sacrificing battle with certain death will be published soon.
unfashionablylost 