(First Old Age chronicle)
I fear my first old age could be moving into the second gear.
I realised this the other day in one of those Swedish concentration camps for furniture, designed by a Nazi sympathiser and now, after a prolonged campaign supported by seasonal advertising blitzkriegs, having the whole of the continent* in firm grip, reinforced with an Allen key.
“Someone must keep rearranging that soulless Scandinavian stuff and moving the bloody exits!” – I tried to comfort myself when after half an hour of constant marching I still couldn't find the way down from the first floor and felt completely lost and confused. But then I looked around again. "No", I thought, "It looks exactly the same as all the other camps that I've been to. The problem lies this side of the assembly instruction - in me."
So I stood there hopeless, stuck in a kitchen owned by a rich and boring Nordic peasant and I was close to being sick. Confused, I mumbled something to myself, which sounded like a mixture of cursing and Swedish - if you can tell the difference. Then I tried pure cursing, but to no avail. It was a foreign land and I wanted back home. I felt tired, old and ready to sob (honestly).
But my curses must have been heard after all, because just then, like the store's yellow out of the blue, a guard... sorry... an assistant turned up. I grabbed him as a reckless bank which invested too much in Greek bonds grabs a reckless government loan.
“Young man!”, (he looked thirty something), “show me the way out, I beg you!”. His hand pointed to a corner of the hall where I had been four times within the last 10 minutes. “No!", I clung to him, "Don't let go of my hand – take me there, I pray!"
He agreed and we slowly moved on. I needed to know one more thing before I completely regained my piece of mind. I wasn't sure if he could help me with it, but I decided to give it a go.
“Tell me", I asked, "are we in Cardiff, Bielany, Croydon or Janki?
If you happen to know yourself.**"
*And the Isles: the Battle of Britain had been won, too.
**He didn't. ;)
