Something I hate is when people simply drop by and knock on my door without warning.
Particularly when I am on holiday and slobbing around in my boxers and haven’t even given the floor a cursory sweep.
That’s exactly what happened two hours ago. Janet came because her friend hadn’t finished giving a speech on Peili campus and she thought she would come and wait at mine.
You can picture the scene as I frantically dragged on breeks and shirt and with no time to even have a perfunctory clear up. So she sat in my office amid all the clutter on both bureaux (the one I don’t sit at looks like a landfill site with empty bags, the cover for my ceiling light and assorted junk). In particular, there sat, accusingly, a half case of wine on the floor and a dozen half-bottles of jing jo on the table! Now the wine is quite normal for me, I like a bottle with my dinner each day and the jing is for nightcaps. I don’t normally have quite that volume in stock but I am gradually amassing a decent quantity in preparation for my travels. I can’t of course cart a month’s supply around in my suitcase but I do like to have emergency supplies. God knows what she thinks now.
She then cast her eye on the desk I DO sit at. Seeing as I eat here I have condiments and seasoning plus two hip flasks, my iced tea bottle which actually contains jing, a half empty bottle of same plus the can of lager I was in the process of drinking when my watching of Fearless was so rudely interrupted.
I am quite certain she has taken away the impression that I roll around legless all day. That I can handle, accusations that I am pissed in class would be rebutted by my students and anyway, Janet wouldn’t tell tales about me even if she wanted to, which I am sure she doesn’t. I am the only one at the university who knows her dark secret so in effect I have a nuclear deterrent!
However, I got the distinct feeling after she had left and I digested what she had said about the insect killer that she thinks I inhale that!! It is only kept there for convenience. Normally I deal with flies with a traditional swatter which is within arms reach but when mosquitoes get into my bathroom or bedroom I give a quick squirt and shut the door. Although they don’t bite me, they do sometimes rather annoyingly perform fly-pasts of my ear, disturbing my slumber.
My reputation, if not in tatters, is definitely slightly dog-eared now but the good thing is she is under no illusion that if she is going to do such a thing again she at least should give me some warning by text.
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