The Thessaliad Redux

Turns out that the police constable who's supposed to be taking my witness statement has other things to do tomorrow afternoon, and the suspect is coming in on Friday. Therefore I will not be getting out of work early -- they're taking my statement at 9 a.m. Oh, joy. I hate the 43 bus. I may shell out for the Tube, now that I actually have some cash to speak of.

Oh, yeah. Pay advance. This is a good thing, despite the fact that the cash not going to household expenses is going on stupid work clothes. Bah. Still no contract either, lazy HR buggers.

I'm not in a great mood, really. I mean, it's not bitch-queen bad, exactly, but it's not exactly jolliest of jolly moods ever. Things just bloody irritate me. And it's not just the job, either, though that's still an issue. After all, people are starting to get used to the idea of giving me work, so stupid gruntwork might be more evenly spread out, at least. Just other people's behaviour in general. Friends of mine -- people I care a whole lot about -- closing themselves off from any kind of ... well, anything for no apparent reason, in particular. That's irritated me for years and I still can't do anything about it. And then there's guilt, and fret, and the rest of the crap that bounces around through my head like Super Happy Fun Ball (DO NOT TAUNT SUPER HAPPY FUN BALL) because my friends value themselves at the approximate level of the rupee. All in all, it does not set the scene for a pleasant day or relaxing evening. Oh, and the not bleeding but increasingly sore index finger, the achy feet (I hate those shoes with a fiery passion) and general fatigue don't help, either.

*checks clock* Oh, that late already? Well, fifteen minutes and I'll do dinner. Oh, life gets thrilling, nee?

I'm going to get sick of the Michael Jackson thing in five ... four ... three ... two ... one.

We didn't really get the trial here, so far as I could see. What we got was occasional sidebars in Metro with Americans with signs and shrines to the man's innocence. So frankly, I'd almost forgotten he was on trial. I didn't think he'd get anything more than a slap on the wrists, though -- it was kind of obvious from what little I did see that the prosecution side were trying it on at least somewhat, which gives reasonable doubt a look-in. Still, LJ is going to be full of arguments, quotes and opinions, and I will go quietly nuts. Or not-so-quietly, knowing me.

Must leave fairly soon. I at least have my route mapped out. I take the 263 as normal, then I take the 43. Then, when I'm done helping justice to be served insofar as I can when I'm undercaffeineated at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning, I will hop a 2-something-or-other and go back to work. Yay. After a day at work, I will come home to an empty house as dodgyhoodoo is going off to the movies with weaselbitch. I think putting together a dinner for one with what we've got in the fridge shouldn't be a problem, provided I can be bothered at the end of the day. Then? Probably Sims 2 or just a book.

Oops. Chatting to nightskywarlock and the time, it has got away from me. Hasta.

The area in which I work is not exactly salubrious. In fact, the road my work is on opens up onto Pentonville Prison, and then I pass Holloway on the 263. There's graffiti and piss in the corners and at lunchtime today, some drunken arsehole decided that he was going to take offense to me not giving him a cigarette and started muttering about foreigners before asking, "Are you illegal?"

(That's, of course, when I finally got out of the office for lunch. Handover officially ended, which meant Vera, my new colleague, used the excuse to a) take an extra half-hour for lunch, leaving me to not get out of the office until 2 and b) leave the office an hour early for the leaving do. Today was not good on a professional level because of that, not to mention the 4000 documents I had to print out because the gas people's printer malfunctioned and a meeting with the finance manager. But I digress.)

So, because I got to work obscenely early and had abberviated lunch, I left ten minutes early. And on my way down the road towards the bus stop, I see two shifty-looking teens on bikes, perched near the hatchback of a Jeep V8. Before that really registers, one of them smashes the back window and looks around. I swear, these kids didn't even see me, which is surprising because I expected them to get whiplash with the amount of backchecking they were doing. Still, the window-breaker reached into the back of the car and pulls out some poor bugger's tote bag, at which point I yell "Oi!" and they scarper. So first thing I do is go to reception of the building nearest to the car, asked if anyone in the company drove such a vehicle (not one of theirs, and too many other buildings to check). Next thing I did was call the police. After being on hold for about five minutes (and this is 999, mind you -- I hate to think how it would have been had that been an actual emergency), I got through to a human being, told her the situation, gave her all the details -- including a description of the lead toerag -- and then left because I couldn't think of what else to do. But they have my name and address and I am a witness so I'll probably be hearing from them again.

My reward for being a good Samaritan? Trundled off to the bus stop, and the 17 was pulling up as I approached. I tried to flag it down -- the driver steadfastly refused to look at me. A nice French woman at the bus stop tried to flag it down for me, and he ignored her too, driving past at a crawl without even a token effort to take on passengers.

To summarise the summary, people are arseholes.