20 The Date Date

I was going on a real, live, date!

None of this pre-date nonsense. Someone thought my profile seemed interesting enough to want to go for dinner and drinks with me.

I was pretty excited.

Until I realised that the date was going to involve work that is.

Yes, Mr Third Base had asked me out but that is where his effort ended. He's from Liverpool so said he that despite being happy to come over to Manchester, he doesn't know it, so I'd have to decide where we were going. Damn!

Putting any fantasies I have about the man being the man and making the decisions, I started going through possibilities in my head.

Do you know how hard it is to plan an evening with someone that you know absolutely nada about? Was he veggie? Would he prefer Indian, or Chinese or maybe Mexican? Should we go cheap and cheerful? Or posh? Or in the middle?

I was non the wiser by the time I met him, so after our initial awkward greeting (where we stood about a mile from each other and just mumbled hi), I said I needed a bit of help choosing.

And his idea of helping? It was to come up with the quirky idea that we should just go to wherever the third nearest place was. Third nearest? God, where's that??? What direction??? We were sitting at crossroads! Call that a help???

Anyway, I finally managed to make a decision and off we headed. Posh-ish pub grub. Nice, cosy, log fire. Hoped he wouldn't notice that we didn't pass two places in between (well I suppose we did if you count the chippy.)

Had to wait a bit for the table. The table that I'd had to ask for. Then when it seemed like we'd been forgotten, I had to go and sort it out.

Ah, I was starting to see a pattern. Despite Mr Third Base being 10 years older than me...tonight Matthew, I was going to have to be the man.

Not to worry though, an opportunity soon presented itself for me to go back to being a girl and I took it...

9 That's Why They Call it Work

I'm really not sure about this working malarkey.

It takes up far too much time. I mean when am I meant to live my life?

What about my gym sessions? I'm never going to be able to stretch enough to regain my missing inch at this rate. What about my man search? Ive got profiles to wade through. I've got emails from small-endowed men to ignore. I've got bases to get to. I've got dates to go on. These things take time. I don't feel my temp agency thought this through properly. Either that or they just don't care.

Fact is that I've no time to work. Particularly not on a job like this one.

It just doesn't stimulate me. And as I'm a firm believer that life is too short to be filled with tedium, as early as day two I started fantasising about how I could leave.

Obviously I needed an excuse. I mean what if I want to do another boring temp job in the future? I want the agency to know how diligent and reliable I am. I needed an excuse and it would have to be a good one.

The best I came up with was contracting an illness, but I realised that plan had it's flaws. Mainly, that as well as being unable to work, I'd also be unable to do anything else.

I decided to take another approach. Instead of working out how to leave, I needed to work out how to stay.

What would motivate me to stick with this job? There is no hot doctor for me to wile away many an hour fantasising about his bedside manner. I needed some other reason to turn up to the hospital every day.

Then I got it! It was obvious! Can't believe I didn't think about it before!

I'd go on holiday!

If I managed to last the contract, I'd use the money I'd made to take myself on a trip. Somewhere hot. I haven't been on holiday for ages (the three and a half weeks in Greece were for work. Soooo not the same thing). It was a great idea!

I phoned my mum, all excited, to tell her about my brainwave. She thought it was inspired. Well what she actually said was... 'Let me get this right...you think you deserve to go on holiday if you manage to work for a mere four weeks?' Pretty obvious she was behind it all the way.

So seven days in (and counting) and I'd actually been ok. Whenever I felt like slitting my wrists with the letter opener, I'd just turn my thoughts to lying on the beach. It was easy. I mean ok, I'm not even half-way yet. Still another thirteen days to go, but I could do this. Only thirteen days. Thirteen days.

Then my temp agency called.

Agency - Just want to talk about what days you would like to work around Christmas time?
Me - Christmas? Erm isn't this job only for four weeks?
Agency - Yes, but they think you are doing a great job and would like you to stay on.

Bugger!