Tuesday 21 February 2012

The Operation - 10th Feb 2012 [Part 2]

I sat there again. Breakfast telly had been replaced by Homes Under the Hammer, a programme which until that moment I didn't know existed but which now seemed really interesting.

Everyone else had also returned from their little trips. I had just decided I should try to talk to someone when my name was called again. 'Here we go. It's showtime.' I thought.

I followed Aisha into the cubicle, way too small and ill-equipped for major surgery. The room I mean, not Aisha.

"My name's Aisha." She said, pointing at her badge, as though that proved she was Aisha. I'd have believed her anyway. She had a stethoscope. "I'm part of the anesthetic team." It takes a whole team to put me to sleep. She then went on to explain in rather too much technical detail how they put you to sleep, keep you asleep, and make sure you wake up again at the end.

Apparently they use a mixture of things, none of which I understood at the time, nor can I remember now but she was friendly, seemed to know what she was talking about and only had to look at her notes once to remember my name. Not bad.

And so it was back to the male waiting zone. I wondered what would happen if I tried to go into the female waiting zone.

As I sat down, Scottish bloke returned too.

"Every time they call your fucking name you think that's the one. It's like waiting on death row."

A slight exaggeration I thought, but he was 6' 3" and a large unit, as they say, so I just nodded and smiled. I think I smiled, it may have looked like a grimace.

Tom in Warrington had been made redundant and so decided to buy a ruin, do it up and try to sell it. He'd never done any building work before, he was going to try and do it himself. He looked at the camera, right down the bottle as we say; "What's the worse that can happen?"

I realised that bun-hair had gone. He'd been wearing a similar sock to me, and I'd spied an arrow on the other shin. I put 2 and 2 together, and decided he was first on the list not Lumley-lite. Ok, I calculated, he's been gone at least ten minutes, it takes an hour or so to do the business, come on then Tom in Warrington, let's see what is the worst that can happen.

As things go, a lot can wrong when you haven't got a clue what you're doing. At the auction, Tom, who had missed out on two previous properties, went nuts and decided he had to win on number three. The result was that he overpaid by £40,000 and now his renovation fund was £40,000 short.

Scottish bloke got called, and never returned. I hope he wasn't actually headed for the electric chair even though I have a problem with people who swear in front of people they don't know. Not that I am saying it is a capital offence.

Homes under the Hammer has the annoying habit of continually recapping the story so far every ten minutes. Maybe they assume that as the majority of their viewers are old, that they must have Alzheimers. I don't and so the fifth time I heard Tom ask what the worst was that could happen, I imagined pushing his head through his crumbling front door and cracking him with a lump hammer. "Is that the worst that can happen Tom?"

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