I have a headache

 

Probably as a result of the over-excitement of the weekend* I’m stranded in another ghastly insomniac stretch, so in fact I got up this morning with a headache.**  It’s raining.  This is good from a garden-care perspective***, except possibly for the disintegrating cardboard boxes containing mail-order autumn bedding plug plants†, but it’s a little frustrating from a hurtling viewpoint.  Hellterror feels that rain is unnecessary but it doesn’t slow her down any.  Hellhounds feel that I am responsible and I could stop it if I cared about their feelings.  Chaos made his lacerated feelings known by refusing to have anything to do with his lunch.  Siiiiiiiigh.

So since the day was not beautiful and uplifting anyway I decided to have a little uncharacteristic spurt of acting like a grown-up.

I was taking Wolfgang in to the garage to have a wheel replaced this afternoon—the wheel that I WHANGED getting out of the way of a bus that was trying to kill me, although, since I’m being a grown-up (briefly) I should add that this was after I had whanged that same wheel a week or so earlier because I am a git, and was looking at a bird in a hedgerow or something and not looking at what I was doing.††  The garage had booked me in and everything but I thought I’d just ring up and check.

They’d never heard of me.  I wasn’t in their diary—and I’d had two conversations with two different people about this appointment—and the fellow who was supposed to be doing the work was (unscheduledly) off today.

They were supposed to check around and ring me back about rebooking.  They are not having a grown-up day.  They didn’t.

I, meanwhile, however, was still on fire with the glow of active, practical maturity.

I made an appointment with dentist from R’lyeh.†††

Aaaaaaaaaand . . . I rang my bank.

I had a letter from them—finally—yesterday, Monday.  It was sent to the wrong address, despite the fact that (both copies of) my letter of complaint had the correct address at the top.  Their letter said that they’d written to me before but hadn’t had any reply.  This would be because I haven’t had any communication from them before this, possibly because they sent the previous missive to some even more wrong address.  This letter asks me a lot of questions I can’t answer because they concern a conversation that happened in June.

There is a phone number.  Despite my dislike of the phone I thought it might be worth trying to point out to a live human being that my memory is not flawless for conversations that happened three minutes ago, let alone three months and let alone about banking.

I waited in the phone queue for about ten minutes—I know this because it takes me twelve minutes to knit a row of my scarf and I didn’t quite get to the end.  When a live human being finally answered, I said that I should perhaps ask to speak to Ms Thingummy, whose name was at the bottom of the letter.  Oh, she’s not in today, said the helpful lady.‡‡  She’s poorly.

Is there anyone else I can speak to? I said.

Well, said the helpful lady dubiously, I’ll have a go, but Ms Thingummy does specialist blah blah blah blah and I really don’t deal with that area.

Do you know when she’ll be back? I said, my active, practical maturity trickling away down the drain like the dregs of last night’s flat champagne.

Oh, I couldn’t say, said the helpful lady.  She’s poorly.

At the bottom of the letter I received on Monday, which claims to be a second attempt to contact me, there is a notice that if they haven’t heard from me by the 25th of September they will close the case.

I think I’ll go lie down and have a little rest.

* * *

* Which, just by the way, I do not regret AT ALL

** And a hellterror saying, Ooooh, let me HELP!  I’ll make you FEEL BETTER!  Let me comb [sic] your hair!  Let me chew on your earlobes!^  Let me whack you in the face with my heavy little head!  Let me remove your glasses with my nose!  Let me climb down^^ the neck of your nightgown!  No, wait!  I do fit!  I do!  Give me a minute!  I just need to adjust the angle of approach slightly!

^ It is interesting, to a multi-breed hellcritter owner+, how much less far a bull terrier nose goes in your ear than a sighthound nose does.

+ Hoonerd

I immediately googled rescue dogs and discovered Salukis. I have never had a sighthound, but after reading Robin for so many years I would love to give them a try. Most breeders seem to want people with sighthound experience, though? How does one get experience when one can’t get a dog without it? Dog walkers? Foster homes?

DON’T START WITH A SALUKI.  Yeeeeep.  Salukis are the hard end of sighthounds—whippets and greyhounds are the easy end.  A good greyhound rescue will both match you with a greyhound they think will suit you and keep an eye on you afterward, including being someone to ask questions as necessary.#  UNLESS you have a local Saluki rescue that is willing to mentor you don’t even THINK about a Saluki, especially a rescue Saluki.  And if there is a Saluki rescue that doesn’t want to mentor you but is willing to let you have a dog . . . YOU DON’T WANT THAT DOG.

# Also, retired-racer greyhound rescue is now common enough there’s a good deal of sensible advice available out there, in hard copy and on line, so you aren’t utterly dependent on your local experts.

^^ Or up.  Hellterrors are not fussy.

*** It’s amazing how much better watered the indoor plants are when I’m not wasting HOURS watering outdoors.

† This happens at least twice a year:  spring plant orders and autumn plant orders.  They INVARIABLY arrive when I don’t have time to deal with them, like just before my first Street Pastors training weekend, so I rip the tops off and plop the boxes around where their contents can catch some sun—and rain—and, this year, where the hellterror can’t test them for playability.

†† At twenty miles an hour and over I’m the safest driver you could ever hope to be stuck behind.  At five miles an hour I’m a menace to society because, you know, it’s five miles an hour.  I was going about three and a half miles an hour when I took out that gate a year or two ago. . . .

††† AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH 

‡ This was one of the tangential delights of being in the phone queue for so long.  About every ten seconds the robot voice comes on telling you blah blah blah blah all our helpful customer service representatives are busy . . . Maybe I could talk to an unhelpful one?  I suspect the outcome would be very similar.