MY LIFE WOULD MAKE A LOUSY FILM BECAUSE... PT 2

I have never had someone end a phone conversation with me and, after they cleared the line, felt impelled to say, ‘Hello, Hello, are you still there?’

My mobile phone frequently cannot get a signal, runs out of credit and battery power.

When I get angry I quickly become incoherent, my vocabulary shrinks to an arsenal of a dozen mono and duo syllabic words, and spittle showers my immediate area. I would have failed the Glengarry Glenn Ross auditions.

I have never begun a romance by bumping into a woman, spilling the entire contents of her bag, bending down to help pick the debris up and had my eyes lock apologetically to hers. I met my wife, drunk, outside a pub.

I have never walked out on a restaurant dinner partner by slamming some bank notes on the table

I have never broken into a garden guarded by ferocious dogs.

If I am awoken at night by an unidentified noise I will always say, ‘bloody neighbours’ before falling back to sleep before the minute is up.

I have never sat in a pub, restaurant or hotel bar smoking, enigmatic and alone.

My bed has a quilt, not white sheets

I never awake by suddenly sitting bolt upright and gasping

I have never been caught outside with a woman in a sudden shower of rain and felt the desire to hoist my jacket over both our laughing heads. In cold weather I have never offered my jacket to a woman without reminding her she is daft for not bringing extra layers.

My life would make a lousy film because... Pt 1:

I have never lit a post-coital cigarette.

I have never ridden, as a patient or a concerned passenger, in an ambulance.

I have never awoken to answer a ringing bed-side telephone with the accusatory greeting, ‘Do you know what time it is?’

I have never come home, walked into my living room and fixed myself a drink.

I have never owned, worn or walked around my apartment in a white cotton vest.

I have never felt imperilled enough in a public eatery to excuse myself, walk briskly to the toilets and try to escape through the window.

I have never got into a taxi and said simply, ‘the airport and step on it’.

When I answer the phone I use polite English ‘He-llo’ by way of greeting. I do not use, ‘Yeah?’, ‘Y’ello?’ or ‘What is it?

I have never had someone slam the phone down on me.

I have never walked into a building and said, ‘Hello, is anybody there?’

I have never run through a hotel kitchen.

I have never driven at great speed through an alleyway.

I have never fled down a backstreet only to come up against a 10 foot unscalable metal mesh gate.