Today was a day of challenges and excitement. I had a v. important meeting with the editor who has been giving me all this work. It was the first time we were going to meet face to face and I spent HOURS choosing the right sort of shirt to say 'this chap is going places you should give him more work'.
It paid off and I've got loads more stuff to do HUZZAH. Actually I've got a bit more stuff than I thought I would. I was given two assignments as well so my days are choca-block and I'm worried that all my important work sitting around in my dressing gown watching day-time TV is going to have to stop.
It's good to be busy, so to mark all these new and exciting things I went and brought a new waistcoat. It's black, beautifully cut and just the right side of sausage-skin tight. I love it.
I also got around to buying my smoking hat which I always swore I would do when I got my first book deal.
It was a strangely hollow experience. For years, ever since I've moved to London, I said to myself 'when I've made it, I'm going to have a smoking hat' I've walked past the shop that sells them countless times, pressing my eager face against the window and dreaming of the day when I would be sat in an old leather arm chair with a smoking hat on.
I have the hat, it is exactly as I wish but now, some how this token of being a proper writer seems not quite right. Perhaps it will grow on me.
Or Perhaps after the sheer terror of not being able to find a loo everything else seems a bit silly. After my lunch meeting I went for a stroll and soon realised that I very much needed the loo.
'Oh' I thought while doing a light shimmy that seems to help when you need the bathroom a lot. 'Don't worry, its only a couple of stops till you are home and then you can have a good pee'
So I got on the tube, which decided to wait in between stops for an AGE. I passed the time while jumping around clutching my trousers and trying not to think of waterfalls or dripping taps.
Twenty minutes passed and I entered the quiet calm of one who has already accepted death. I spent this time wondering if I did wet myself would I walk home which would be uncomfortable or continue on the tube with the smell of shame but getting home much faster.
Paddington station came along and I decided to get out a stop early, Paddington is a train station as well as a bear and train stations definitely have public loos. I bounced all the way to the loos but discovered you had to pay 20p to go in them.
Oh no!
Realising I had but seconds before I exploded I sort of hop-walked to the cash machine. I had to get some money out, then some change, then I could at last go to the loo.
The queue for the cash machine was HUGE with a selection of confused people carefully checking the balance on a dozen of accounts before slowly packing their bags and walking on. I briefly toyed with the idea of mugging someone but while I jiggled around biting the hem of my coat to try and stave off doing something very unpleasant I bit down on some coins!
I had twenty pence! I just managed to make it to the loos before I lost bodily control. My word, it wasn't just a trip to the bathroom it was a water-themed epiphany. I've never felt so much relief.
I suppose after that much excitement a smoking hat really isn't that special.
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