The Story of a Key

It begins with the sheer incompetence of the Royal Mail. That a letter posted second class should take days and days to reach its destination is unbelievable, although it merely hints at the absolute shambles that particular organisation is in at present. Anyway, having let down one family member by virtue of the fact that his card did not arrive on time, I was determined not to allow the same thing to happen this week. So, gathering everything necessary, I made my way at lunchtime to Morrison’s, where I purchased a birthday card and a book of stamps. First class stamps this time. That should do it. But no, for in my hurried state I had forgotten to bring the address.

Never mind, I shall post it when I get home.

So, on arriving home, I had tea, found the address, wrote it on the envelope and then walked five minutes down the road to our local post box, only to find I had missed the only daily collection by about thirty minutes. You can imagine by annoyance when I noticed a message that read “later collection available at Dudley main office.” What use is that to me? Dudley is miles away! If I had posted the letter, it would not have been collected for another twenty-four hours, meaning that it was liable to be late. Again.

Cursing, I decided to walk back home and try our local supermarket’s post box, which I was informed, had an earlier collection. Already running late (I had a whole host of other things I needed to do during the evening), I chucked my mobile phone, the envelope and my front door key on the passenger seat of the car and set out to my destination. As I veered around one particular bend, however, I heard the “tinkling” sound of my front door key as it disappeared off the seat. Not to worry, I’ll search for it when I get to the supermarket. On parking up, I embarked upon a brief search of the passenger seat and its surrounding area, but couldn’t find it anywhere, so, with increasing annoyance, I stormed off to the supermarket, where I found that the collection was at the same time as the post box I had just been to, leaving me with no choice but to post the envelope containing the birthday card, which meant that not only had my journey been totally pointless, but the card would undoubtedly arrive late anyway.

Argh!

Marching aggressively back to my vehicle, I embarked upon yet another search of the passenger seat, only to discover from a metallic rattle that the key had somehow lodged itself invisibly deep within the mechanics of the seat. No matter how much I ferreted around, no matter how many fingers I poked into the rails and recesses of the mechanism, I couldn’t not determine its precise location, despite the teasing, tantalising sound of its rattle every time I pushed the seat forward. With a final cry of anguish, followed by a primitive scream of rage, I slammed the car door shut so hard that the hinges practically flew off (fortunately they didn’t), threw myself back into the drivers seat and drove off home, leaving scorch marks on the car park tarmac.

Now, there is usually a moral to a story like this, but having now slept on this particular tale of woe, I can only think of one lesson and it is simply this:

Life can be a pain in the f@#g arse and there’s absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.