I’m in a perpetual state of fug today. You can go for days not having enough sleep and feeling tired and then one day, like today, have too much sleep and feel tired. Is this just how its meant to be from now on? Trying desperately to work out the exact right amount of sleep to have to ensure that I don’t wander around aimlessly for hours with a constantly confused look on my face wondering where I am or why I am. Today’s state has so far caused a small moment of neighbourly awkwardness as I was caught out trying to put ‘a note’ on a car blocking our driveway. I put ‘a note’ in inverted commas because it was one of those notes. The notes that without actually containing any rude words, seems to hide the venom in the spaces between words or in other hidden methods. Mine today had three exclamation marks at the end of the first sentence and no punctuation at the end of the second. I like to feel that this denotes my sheer rage at first, followed by my anger peaking so much I can’t even bring myself to end it correctly, deeming the recipient not worthy of correct grammar.
There seemed to be a good reason for ‘the note’. I loathe making ‘notes’. They embody everything petty about the world and leaving one means you’ve lost being able to cope with things but are too chicken to do something proper about them. I once left ‘a note’ for my flatmates in my second year of university on account of them having no idea what cleaning was and two months of washing up had begun to move in ways crockery shouldn’t. I think it was the point when I found maggots happily creating a homestead amongst some old cuppa soups that ‘the note’ was made and left duly on the stairs as you walked in whilst I left the house in protest. Sadly I returned later to find the washing up not done and ‘a note’ directed towards me from the flatmates telling what a cock I was for leaving ‘a note’. It took about three weeks for things to be resolved during which time the maggots took over the kitchen, set up their own community and I still ended up having to deal with them whilst retching continuously over a four hour stint. Somehow, I had totally lost in every way, proving to me, that ‘notes’ were a tad overrated.
However, in recent times they have appeared again. This is because myself and Nat use our driveway all the time, everyday, and yet people insist on parking right in front of it meaning I have learnt reversing manoeuvres that combine skills only expert snooker playing cab drivers have previously discovered. So, finally, after telling people again and again not to do it and yet still seeing them do it when there is more than enough adequate parking space nearby on our non-permitted road, ‘the notes’ have returned. Often starting with a ‘please’ to disarm them following with utilising exclamation marks where needed and occasionally following up with a guilt laden extra sentence explaining why they are irritating dicks of human beings. In the last three weeks about 4 notes have been placed and nothing has changed. So today, when myself and Nat walked out of our flat, up the hill, and we saw a flash silver car (this is the extent of my car knowledge. It was nice looking, it was silver), the pen and paper appeared.
I had scribbled half of my note when the car beneath my pad clicked and unlocked and I noticed a cheery looking woman staring at me in a bemused fashion as she returned to her car. Myself and Nat began to defensively explain why she shouldn’t be parked there, only for her to apologise profusely, and explain that she lived across the road but the branches on their tree were being cut so she had parked it across the road for 15 minutes. A perfectly reasonable excuse. One so reasonable that I found myself back tracking, complaining about other drivers while screwing up the note in my hand just out of her eyeline. One again ‘the note’ has failed. I honestly feel like today I have entirely validated the phrase ‘you snooze, you lose’. Big stupid loser. Sigh.
