Thursday 20 November 2008

20 Minutes

20 Minutes. There's a lot of things I can do in 20 minutes. Burp a baby. Kill a mockingbird. Let the dogs out. Drink a pint. Tie my shoelace 40 times. Count to 1200 (one elephant, two elephant, three elephant...). On this occasion I had 20 minute wait at Gatwick Airport for my train. No prizes for guessing what I chose to do.

I had barely got to "ten elephant" when I decided to buy myself a healthy chocolate snack, so I stopped counting and headed off to WHSmith. The store is roughly one minute away from the platform, so that would still give me 18 minutes spare. With a bit of luck I would have time to point Percy at the porcelain on the way back, and maybe even drop off the kids.

To my dismay I was thwarted by the joint efforts of a lotto-junkie and a trainee cashier. A deadly combination. The two were locked in some sort of bitter dispute. The lotto-junkie seemed to be purchasing every scratchcard available. Titles included "Monkey Money" and "Money For Ewe".

The latter must be the lowest form of scratchcard available. "Money For Ewe" has a huge background image of a ewe, and each little scratch item is a ewe. Talk about bottom-of-the-barrel.

I waited patiently as these gibbonoids fought it out. I can't remember what they were fighting about, I was too busy working out how many years of mental gymnastics I would require before I bought a "Money For Ewe" scratchcard. It came to 16 million. The heated shop floor was making me sweat like a badger, and I started to panic as I realised that the chances of making my train were as narrow as a stick insect's waist.

I made my train, but only just, and I arrived perspiring like a mad horse and busting for a wee. 20 minutes. Time flies so fast when you're having fun. Next time I'll stick with the counting.

6 comments:

Mohan Mahesan said...

Mo,
Thanks for your comments on my blog.
Mohan

Azure Accessories said...

That is just the way things happen some times...when you least expect it...right...counting is good!!! :0)

Cheers

Queen of the Mayhem said...

These kind of things always seem to happen to me too.

Glad you made your train...even if you were sweating to death in the process!

Funny post!

MadMad said...

Too funny! Well, maybe not for you... ;)

Dwane T. said...

Yes you are funny!!! And as far as "evil rabbits", I saw the movie "Night of the Lepus" as a kid, and I have been scarred and scared every since.

Sass said...

Percy.

Really?

Percy?

As I have quite a few new readers since I became a "Jelly Biter" I've put this up here again. To understand the context you must read this post!