There I was dressed in my best suit and heading for an important business meeting in the City.
I got out of the taxi and walked on the sidewalk towards the building I was heading for when suddenly I was showered from above by what appeared to be a green “gunge” smelling of disinfectant. I really don’t know where the unpleasantly sticky, semi-liquid substance came from. I looked up at the tall building and there were a few windows open. Anyway … no time to go in and try to complain.
My head, hair, raincoat and suit were totally covered by the substance.
I rushed into the building where I was to have my meeting and headed for the Gents Toilet.
Have you ever tried to wash your hair in those tiny wash basins? Water bounces off everywhere and strategically lands on the front of your trousers with embarrassing results! I can’t go to the meeting like that! What will they think of me?
I tried bending backwards like a limbo dancer and standing under that contraption which blows hot-air to dry your hands in the hope that I could at least dry my trousers a little. But … dash it all … I was interrupted several times by people coming into the Gents so I stood up quickly and pretended to dry my hands. At one stage a lady cleaner came in to clean the toilets and eyed me suspiciously and walked out saying nothing.
I gave up drying my trousers and tried to wash the gunge from my hair instead. It must have been an industrial strength liquid because it started to foam profusely like shampoo on my head. The more I put water on it the more it foamed but eventually I got most of it off. Now to dry my hair under that hot air dryer! Dash it all once again … someone came in suddenly and as I got up with a start I banged my head hard against the infernal contraption knocking my glasses off to the ground.
I now turned my attention to my raincoat and suit. Pointless adding water to them I thought. I have no time and must rush to my meeting. I used a million paper towels and wiped off any excess substance that had not yet permeated into the material and headed for my meeting.
As luck would have it … Oh thank you God, thank you … the meeting had been cancelled due to some other business emergency.
Great … I headed back home.
My return journey on the train was somewhat hot and a strong smell of disinfectant filled the air in my vicinity. A few passengers sniffed at me suspiciously and moved away to other seats, or stood by the open windows. I pretended not to notice.
As I walked back home from the railway station it started to rain and I was forced to put my raincoat on. The water reactivated the green gunge which started to foam. The more it rained the more it foamed as I ran home followed by millions of brightly colored soap bubbles filling the air behind me. People stopped and looked at me thinking I was a walking advert for soap powder. It brought the traffic to a standstill as drivers switched on their windshield wipers to wash away the soapy substance from their cars.
When I got home I threw the raincoat into the washing machine with a good dose of washing powder.
Big mistake!
The green gunge combined with the washing powder to create even more bubbles. I rinsed the garment several times and every time the machine discharged its load through the drains the bubbles insisted in floating away in the garden rather than disappearing with the rest of the water. On and on the bubbles floated away decorating trees, bushes and everything in their way.
I opened the washing machine and more bubbles came out invading my whole house and threatening to evict me from my home.
I grabbed my vacuum cleaner and headed for the garden intent on capturing as many bubbles as possible in mid-air before they covered the entire world.
I put on my Wellington boots which are usually kept just outside the back door for emergencies. No sooner had I walked a couple of paces than I felt a slimy feeling in my left boot. I hurriedly pulled the boot off to discover that a family of snails had set up home in my boot and were now in the final throes of agony around my toes before meeting their Maker.
It started to rain again popping the bubbles in mid-flight; so I gave up and left bubbles and snails to their own fate as I retrieved the raincoat from the washing machine to find it had shrunk sufficiently to fit a Barbie doll … or should that be a Ken doll?
