Some days I wake up and I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to ride my bike, I don’t want to read a book, I don’t want to listen to Latterman, I don’t even want to write. It’s not laziness; it’s just a feeling of apathy. One thing I want to do everyday, not matter what the day, without fail, is to see my friends, to chat, to laugh and to be in good company. On this particular morning this was the definitely the way I was feeling. I wanted to see friends but I was due in work for an eight hour shift on the dishwasher. Work had been getting me down for months, I wanted to quit so badly, I’d had enough of whinging customers nagging at me like it was my fault the café sucked so much. Just to make it worse we’d been interrogated by our manager too.
While I was eating breakfast the phone rang and it was Dan. “We’re going on a road trip to some reservoir out past Leicester do you want to come?” I love road trips; there is nothing that beats cruising along with your friends in the sun, window down, just watching the scenery pass you by so I instantly said ‘yeah of course I’ll join you’. It was a perfect day for a road trip, the weather was just right for it, nice and warm, not the sort of day you want to let slip you by while you wash dishes and breathe in air-conditioned oxygen for hours. I folded up my uniform and went out into the day, the best thing would be not to phone work at all. Instead I’d just never bother going back, and they’d eventually get the idea that I wasn’t coming into work ever again.
Both sides of us were fields for miles and miles, an old archway bridge way off in the distance, typical British countryside. We ploughed on, arriving at Rutland Water in the early evening. We got out and walked around for a bit, stopping to talk to the fishermen to see what they’d caught and eventually we settled by the water for a while in the heat. We passed a few joints around and watched the sunset over the water, ending up very stoned in the dark. The story of my life.
