Rosamundi's ramblings

I have a couple of weddings to go to this year, and needed an outfit. Having found a fabulous pattern (Dior New Look, mid calf, long sleeve), that the equally fabulous Rosamummy is entirely confident of being able to get to fit me, I went shopping for fabric. One of the suggested fabrics, shantung silk, is Not Cheap, and I need about a mile of whatever I decide to buy. Anyway, I commenced poking Google with a stick, and it disgorged a website that was selling aforesaid fabric for $5 a yard.

“Squeeeeeee!” I said, only precariously maintaining my perch on the giant purple ball that passes as a seat at my “no, Mr Bond, I expect you to die” desk. The cheapest I’d found it elsewhere was $12 a yard (eBay), which is fairly impressively cheap, or in John Lewis at £20 a yard, which made me blink and go “bibble,” after I did the dressmakers’ equation of “£20 a yard * 7 yards = ouch.”

I perused the site further.

“Ah,” I said, as all became clear.

No wonder it was $5 a yard. Who’s going to go to a wedding wearing a dress the colour of sick?

I don’t normally take the Tube in the evening – everyone’s hot and cross and I see no reason for making everyone hotter and crosser, so I walk from Oxford Circus to Liverpool St, thus saving gym fees as well. This evening, I had Stuff to Do, like laundry, and phoning my grandma, and knitting, so I thought “I shall get the Tube. It will be quicker, and I might even get a seat. Woo.”

So I got the Tube, and I even got a seat (woo).

Got to Bank, and the raised voices started.

“What you shove me for?”

[unclear]

“Don’t you [deleted-but-it-started-with-F] swear at me!”

[unclear]

And then suddenly I’m in a mass brawl of angry pushing shoving shouting people who are really quite angry and shouty indeed. Remember those cartoon fights where it’s a whirl of dust with the occasional fist or foot flying out? It was like that.

I ran away. I am officially No Good in a Fight.

For the love of God, people, get a grip! It’s a Tube train! If this one’s too busy, there’ll be another one along in a minute (and even a Central Line minute is only 90 seconds. Waiting for 90 seconds never killed anyone yet). And if someone steps on your foot, it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. There are huge gaps on the platforms at Bank, an angry shove in the wrong place at the wrong moment and someone could be badly hurt.

Your little violent outburst probably didn’t make you feel any better and caused hundreds of people to be horribly delayed on their journey home – was it really worth it?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the nice ladies at Lush prescribed one of these after I went in and cried all over them, so I’m going to run myself a nice bath, pour myself a glass of wine, and hide for a bit.

(Apologies for lack of funny, I was quite badly frightened. It will all be hilarious tomorrow, I’m sure).

I’m saying all this in Chwistian Wuv™, of course.

My potential redundancy is not a source of amusement. Just because all you ever see me doing is chasing around after the invoices which you have signally failed to authorise despite the fact that you’ve been sitting on them for six whole weeks, placating irate Accounts Receivable clerks and saying “well, I’m sorry you were told that, all my colleagues have explicit instructions not to promise payment on a certain date, on pain of pain*,” there is considerably more to my job than the bit that has been outsourced. Nevertheless, “so, does this mean you no longer have a job?” accompanied by that annoying laugh of yours, you know the one, it makes me fantasise about clamping your anatomy in a vice and applying vast quantities of alternating current, is really not a good conversation starter. Also, it’s none of your business.

Incidentally, I’m quite looking forward to seeing your boss’s face when he starts getting bombarded with automated “please authorise this invoice since it is past due for payment and your colleague has been sitting on it for weeks” e-mails.

I thought about getting all late Mediæval on you, but I’m not entirely sure anyone deserves that lot.

*So much more effective than “on pain of death,” if you ask me.

Someone found some money sticking out of the cash machine. Quite a lot of money, too. I happen to know that if you don’t take your withdrawal, the magic cash machine fairies suck the money back in, and it is recredited to your account. Apparently, not everyone knows this, so consider this today’s Useful Fact of the Day™.

Anyway, the person referenced above did not know this Useful Fact,* and took the money and went on their merry way, rejoicing and praising God.

“I prayed for money, and there it was!” they said.

“I don’t think God works like that,” I said. Why yes, I am a reknowned spoilsport and wetblanket, why do you ask?

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in order to enrich you, someone else has been deprived of their hard-earned cash, possibly the only money they have to last them all week. I don’t think God enriches Person A by causing Person B to have to live on Blue Dragon noodles and tap water for a week. Um. I think you need to take the money back and go into the bank and explain – they’ll be able to reunite the money with its owner. Um. Err.”

“But I prayed!”

“Yes, but God doesn’t always say ‘certainly, here you go!’ when you pray, does he? Sometimes He says ‘no,’ or ‘not yet,’ or ‘do you think we’re made of money, and turn that light off!’ Ooops, no, hang on a second, that last one’s my dad, easy to get the two mixed up.”

“Mumble.”

“I think you ought to take the money back, I don’t think it’s yours.”

“Mumble. Willyoucomewithme?”

“Of course.”

So we went off to the bank and owner and money were reunited.

“I never thought of it like that,” the person said. “I suppose it’s obvious when you think about it, but even if you find a tenner in the street, in order for you to find it, someone else has had to lose it. And it was a lot of money. I’d be gutted if I lost it.”

“And don’t go thinking God will make your lottery ticket the winner, either…” I admonished.

*they do now, oh yes they do.