It’s just gone 7am. Inside chez Strachan tiredness reigns, outside rain….. well, also reigns. Thunder and lightning provided a cacophonous overnight soundscape; this backdrop ruining my attempts of slumbering peacefully.
After this meteorological episode, if I adapted the operatic quartet element of Queen’s iconic Bohemian Rhapsody, I reword the line ‘Thunderbolt and Lightning, very, very frightening me’ to ‘Thunderbolt and Lightning, very, very irritating me’.
Consequently, yours truly feels so fatigued, if there was a local Am-Dram production of Rip Van Winkle in the pipeline, I reckon I’d make a pretty good fist of auditioning for the eponymous role.
That being said, with Van Winkle sleeping for twenty years in the tale, clearly the story timeline would require condensing. After all, theatre goers can’t just give up twenty years of their existence sitting in a theatre waiting for an enigmatic bearded Dutchman to wake the hell up!
The audience’ve jobs to do and bills to pay. The last thing anyone wants is to return home from a theatre show to learn you’ve lost your job due to long-term non-attendance and owe twenty years rent on your apartment.
Following ensconcement inside a playhouse for two decades, I’d suggest your health wouldn’t be in the best shape either. I mean, living on a diet of crisps, M&M’s, hot dogs and soda from the theatre kiosk for a score years would surely deprive you of key minerals. Sunlight deprivation for such a lengthy duration, no doubt depleting your vitamin D levels immeasurably.
I’d envisage the entertainment value would be lacking somewhat if the shows plot line entailed being perched watching someone kipping in a bed for years on end.
Roald Dahl’s ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ wouldn’t have achieved anywhere near the critical success it attained had Dahl’d given Chas a minor role. Instead, heavily underpinning plot lines around the boy’s four grandparents, who’d been bed bound for decades.
The book ‘Grandparents Joe, Josephine, George & Georgina Sit In Bed All Day Doing Nowt’ by definition wouldn’t have provided enthralling viewing. Even Roald Dahl would’ve struggled to polish those tedious circumstances into a fictional diamond.
Anyhow, this synopsis of my day is being penned with bleary eyes and muddled mind I’d experience after finishing a night shift back in the day. Days when my body refused to comply at becoming nocturnal every four weeks, resulting in me having to survive on ten hours sleep for that particular week of my shift rota.
The fatigue experienced during those occasions was at times distressing. My physical and mental wherewithal heavily impacting functioning at work. But the shift allowance allowed me to provide for my wife and kids, after my wife packed in full-time work in 1990. My estranged wife is eternally grateful for this sacrifice, though, making it all worth while.
To close, yours truly wants to spare you the ignominy of my experience this morning when ringing a call centre to cancel a soon to arrive engineer. This very simple advice is to never ring anyone if you’ve a dog sat adjacent, panting to cool itself down on red hot day……. That is all!
