Monday, October 18, 2004

The great G-Man fridge yarn

“i am working at 8, g is out with the lads and i don’t want him wakin me up at 3”

So said the text message from Sara, explaining why she was staying over on Saturday night. At midnight, I retired to bed having fallen into a takeaway induced coma.

The phone rang.

Gareth was on the other end slurring that he was in “A whole world of trouble” – I thought he’d been arrested. He hadn’t as it happens, he’d caved in under intense drinking pressure and decided to make for home. Once in the taxi he either threw up in it, or got the driver to stop so he could. Either way the driver wasn’t prepared to take him any further and kicked him out on the edge of Oxford.

Detached from his friends, miles from a taxi rank, freezing to death, he was stranded. We were his only hope a mere 25 miles away. When I eventually reached him he told me the story rather like a tatty flick book which plays out a few pages before jumping to another section then ending abruptly (he was asleep within a mile of me picking him up).

At exactly the same time Gareth phoned, Sara’s mobile went off. It was from Waitrose (where she works – it wasn’t extended customer service). Now check this… the temperature in one of the fridges in the shop was going up, so the fridge phoned up a control centre to tell them it wasn’t feeling well. The control centre called Sara – who was on call – to go and sort it out.

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