Whisper Words of Wisdom
The room at the hotel has an outside bathroom, 6 or 7 foot high walls for privacy. white tiles on the walls and floor. The toilet and shower are in the half of the bathroom with the covered roof, opposite there is an 18 inch high wall housing a raised flower bed that is pretty much just mud with some unhealthy looking plants that look like they’ve had too much sun.
It’s 2002 and I’m in the middle of the Indian Ocean on the island of Meerufenfushi, I’d ran away on a last minute two week holiday to get peace to de-stress from dealing with my nitpicking manager who was bullying me at work. I’m nearly at the end of my holiday, it’s been amazing, me, the sunshine a couple of trips and sitting reading books in the sun while listening to my Walkman.
If you don’t know what a Walkman is, it plays cassettes, it’s like a more portable version of a record player that you need headphones for.
It’s about 11pm. I can’t sleep, I don’t feel too good. Today I know I got a bit too much sun so am feeling a little dehydrated. I’m trying to drink water, but I feel sick. I spend the next few hours not able to concentrate on reading. The fish curry from the buffet clearly didn’t agree with me. I end up on the porcelain telephone talking to Huey, Huey and Ralph. The other end isn’t happy either, I keep swapping ends on the toilet.
I feel so wretched, I just want to be better, the previous night I slept badly and got only about two or three hours sleep. I’m exhausted, it’s half 2 in the morning, I fly home in 12 hours. I’ve been listening music because I can think of nothing else to do. I’m sat on the floor of the bathroom watching little green geckos only a few inches in length running along the walls. I say sat, more propped up against. My stomach churns, throwing up leaves me with a minute of feeling on top of the world before the nausea comes flooding back. Part of me is red raw, too ill to sleep, too tired to move. I’m in a horrible elevated mental state where I can’t think clearly and I just want to sleep to make it all go away, but I can’t and I’m already agitated. Sunstroke and food poisoning, what a combination!
Plonk plonk, plonk plonk… on comes Let It Be by The Beatles. I focus on the music to try and distract myself. Delirium is kicking in, the song feels like a blanket, it makes feel warm and loved, the lyrics start, I start to feel the words make sense to me. I suddenly understand. The whole song, everything makes sense, I start crying uncontrollably, all the time I’ve got a sensation that I understand! Understand what exactly I couldn’t tell you. The song finishes, I play the song a few more times, still crying feeling wretched and everything in the world makes sense.
12 hours later I’m on the plane home, 10 hours to London, it’s after midnight, my flight to Edinburgh is 7:30am. In the past 48 hours, I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep, I’m staying awake and hang about in the airport until my flight is due to leave. I am due in at work at 08:30. My twisted sense of having to be reliable and turn up because it’s the done thing is in overdrive. Not only is plane an hour late, the airline screw up my and other passengers luggage. Walk into work at half 9, dressed in the same shorts and t-shirt I’d left the Maldives in, ready to work! The wanky manager isn’t happy, the Managing Director is up today and wanky boss is worried that how I’m dressed will reflect badly on him and asks me to go home and get changed. I try and ignore him, go on a wander to catch up workwise, end up talking to the MD and another director who seem amused I actually came into work. Wanky boss walks in says “Ah, excellent, you’re going to go home and get changed like I asked” and scurries off. The directors look at each other and laugh at wanky boss. They couldn’t give a toss about how I was dressed.
What lessons can we learn from this?
Holidays are important, nay essential!
Being delirious is great fun on hindsight and at the time.
Do what you think is the right thing at the time, it’s better than regretting not doing it.
Don’t give in to wanky bosses that pick on you due to their own insecurities. He took me to the pub that night, tired to get me drunk, I had about 5 or 6 drinks, then claimed he had a bottle of vodka, wen to his flat he tried to hide the fact he’d poured me a half glass of vodka and juice to get me really fucked, I cottoned on and poured it into a plant pot. The next day he had a dreadful hangover, I was fine, yet he had a dig at me that I had “Better not be hungover!”
I got the last laugh though, he eventually got made redundant. WANKER!
