Call Me

Y'know sometimes how you start off with one strong idea about how the day is going to go, and then, practically before you've got the sleep out of your eyes, the world whacks you upside the head and says "Think again there bucko!"

Today was one of those days.

Today was gonna be all about something which, now, I'll tell you about tomorrow. Got to my bus-stop this morning - blisters stopped walk...again! - and was happily listening to some comedy on my iPod when an old geezer shuffled up to me. Long coat, scruffy stubble, flat cap, egg-stains around the upper lip, stench of old smoke and stale drink on him, and, when he opened his mouth, as it turned out, only a couple of deep yellow (borderline orange) teeth in his head.
"You got a phone?" he rasped at me. I reluctantly unplugged myself from the comedy stylings of Tim Minchin (about whom, trust me, more at another time).
"Sorry?" I asked.
"You got a phone?" he demanded, more irritated now.
"Yyes," I said.
"Got credit?"
"Yyyyes?" I said, wondering when we were going to get on to pertinent details like my mother's maiden name or my first pet.
"Gimme it?"
Fortunately, and for this I must give him credit, he did include the question-mark, making it rather more pathetic than threatening.
"Nnnno," I chose, after, for no logical reason I can now imagine, appearing to give it some considered thought. (Could I be more stereotypically British?)

"Will you ring mine?" he asked, his second gambit firmly re-establishing us on a more familiar plane.
"You want me...to call you?" I asked, making sure I had this right. "While I'm here....talking to you?"
"Yeah," he said, rummaging in his pockets.
"Riiiight," I said. I couldn't in all honesty tell you I was comfortable with this, but on the other hand, there appeared no polite way of getting out of it.
He pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. Then unfolded it more. This was no scrap of paper with his number scrawled on it. It was a full sheet of foolscap, with the numbers printed on it in thick black ink 20 points or more high.
"Call me," he demanded, that note of expectation back in his voice. Almost against my will, but without any reason not to, I did as he asked.
"'sit ringin'?" he demanded, once I'd begun the call to who-the-fuck-knew-where.
"Think so," I said. He grabbed the phone out of my hand and held it up to his ear.
"Oh yeah," he said. "Fuckin' Vodafone...s'always the same, innit?"
The same as what, I wasn't sure. Certainly it wasn't turning out to be the same as anything for me so far this morning.
"Answer the fuckin' phone, ya dozy..." he shouted into the phone. I tried not to imagine the ingredients of the spittle that was probably dissolving through the phone's casing as we spoke.
Then he handed the phone back to me, and I ended the call.
"That's women for you, innit? Eh?"
"Err...is it?"
"Bloody Chinese women," he added, just to stir the pot a little more.
"S'me wife, innit?" he said, pulling out a passport photo of what indeed seem to be a youngish Chinese woman.
"You wear 'em out, they can't get up inna mornin'," he vouchsafed, grinning.
"Ah," I said, blinking rather rapidly at this point just to keep myself afloat in what might generously have been described as 'the conversation'.
"What bus you gettin'?" he demanded.
I don't know what compelled me, but I told him the truth - anything to Plaistow. Fortunately, he wasn't going my way, and we parted company after some more choice opinions - his, clearly, not mine - on buses, the new stations they were building, and how there was never a bus when you needed one (which was clearly false - one had turned up while I was calling him, and we'd both had to let it go, locked as we were in the Chinese woman drama).

So now, on my phone log, there's a mysterious morning call to what presumably is a real, young, probably rather confused Chinese woman, which in other circumstances could have been all sorts of bad.

Still, she hasn't called back, so we're probably fine...

Blood was 5.0 this morning, and as I say, my right foot's blistered to buggery again, so I'll be doing bog-all on it till we leave on Friday. So much for the best laid plans of mice and Disappearing Men.