Torture

.
I wonder about the ordeals that people put others through.

Where once just saying, ‘I love kids’ at the interview was enough to secure a permanent position in a school, now there is an almost a Japanese endurance ordeal to undergo: first you have to visit the school, fill in the application form, write the letter of application, secure referees, and then if you are lucky enough to get an interview you then have to teach a 30 minute lesson before the interview grilling, finally, they ring you back in the evening to say yeah or nay.

On the morning of the interview I had my annual bath to calm my nerves and even treated myself to some rose scented bath foam.

Bliss!

I pulled the plug, dressed, and went downstairs, calm and collected.

Peaceful!

All I had to do now was go.

I went to get my car keys and to my horror discovered water pouring through the kitchen ceiling!

Lots of water!

Water with a faint tinge of rose mixed with damp plaster.

A waterfall of water!

Only the day before I had asked the plumber to come back because one of the new bath taps that he’d recently installed was loose in its moorings and dripping... the hot tap of course!

He’d arrived, fixed the tap tight, declared the tap to be broken and unfixable and said that I'd have to go back to B&Q to get a new one. Then he left me with the Timeless ceramic tap not living up to its name at all as it merrily dripped away every half second.

Ho hum!

And now on the morning of my interview, just after I’d reached a brief fragile moment of confident equanimity, after an entire week of angst and worry, water is now pouring through the kitchen ceiling, battering the amaryllis and dwarf daffodils and splashing all over the work surfaces.

I had to leave the house with water still pouring through the kitchen ceiling; and letters for The Teenager on the floor of the bathroom warning him not to have a bath under any circumstances.

Oh, and I'd also had to put the plug in the bath, because of course the tap was still dripping merrily away, and so, oh, of course the bath was steadily filling up with water which no doubt would soon reach the point where it would be pouring down the waste pipe to splash against the kitchen flora and fauna once again!

I left shutting the door on it all.

Heigh ho!

I had a long twenty mile drive to the school.

The lesson went well and the children worked beautifully.

The interview went well.

Although I can't now remember a single question, I felt I fielded them all as well as anyone possibly could...in the circumstances.

When I left the school I felt so positive.

When I got to Northampton I started to feel less so.

I picked  The Teenager up from his school. He was very upset about the bath situation.

He said he had to have a bath as he was meeting his friend, who is a girl, in town.

He had to bail out with a pan all the cold water in the bath left from the dripping tap, have his bath and then bail out all his dirty bath water.

He was not a happy bunny!

He demanded that I get the plumber back straight away.

The plumber was on the motorway. He said he was at Milton Keynes and that he'd come by.

The Teenager said he needed to go into town to meet his friend, who is a girl, who never turned up the last time.

I said, ‘I'll have to take you into town now as the plumber is coming.’

The Teenager's not a happy bunny about being taken into town early.

As I'm taking The Teenager into town, The Teenager gets message on phone from friend, who is a girl, saying could they meet up in town later at six instead of five –thirty?

The Teenager throws fit in car as he hates the town centre. I suggest that we continue with the journey and that he should go to the library and wait there a while.

I drop The Teenager off in the town centre...well I would have liked to have done...but The Teenager now needs to brush his hair...and brush his hair....and brush his hair.....five minutes later out he goes.

Met the Northampton rush hour traffic on the way back…lots of traffic.... no ...lots of traffic. Every traffic light was at red.

Met the plumber on the doorstep.

He plods upstairs in his dirty boots.

'Ah,' says the plumber, 'the waste pipe came adrift after I secured the still dripping tap.'

'Ah,' I say.

Not so much as a word of apology from the plumber!

I'm thinking I need a new plumber.

'I unfastened it,' he says, 'to secure the dripping tap. So some of the water was going down the pipe and some...'

I can't begin to tell you what I'd like to unfasten from the plumber… but limb from limb would be a start!

I am giving the plumber the evil eye.

Plumber mistakes evil eye for a 'come on'.

Plumber is looking me up and down in my slightly smarter clothes. I've used a bit of face powder to cover the Vesuvius spot that was on my nose that morning, and I've got a tiny bit of eye liner on.

Plumber is smiling in a sickly sort of way.

I show plumber The Door!

Plumber goes.

Phone rings... is it the school ...? It's early. Have I got the job.....?

No, it's The Teenager. Friend, who is a girl, has stood him up again, and can I pick him up from town he asks? Now?

I drive back to the town centre and pick up The Teenager who is now feeling murderous towards friend who is a girl.

I am feeling murderous towards the plumber.

The Teenager tells me he's a goat.

He's talking about himself.

This is while I'm driving!

The Teenager tells me he's a goat according to the Chinese.

Goats apparently can't say, 'No.'

I can think of a lot of other things that goats can't say bit I remain stum.

Then I wait for the phone to ring. And I wait and wait. It gets late, so late and there’s no phone call and I check to see if anyone rang while I was dashing into town several times… but no one had.

I guess I didn't get the job.

I long to have a bath to wind down but I've got to wait for her of the school to ring to say, 'No thank you.'

And it's late.

And I’m trembling with exhaustion and I’m feeling cross. Cross that I've wasted a week whittling, thinking and worrying. Cross about all that work, and all that planning, and all that preparation, and all my paper, and all my printing, and all my wasted inks,  that has all for nothing.

And I'm soooooo tired and exhausted.

Oh well, never mind, something else will turn up soon. Nowhere does it say that it is best practice to leave Niagara Falls in your kitchen on your way to a job interview; which is of course the ultimate Japanese water torture interview ordeal!

Two days later and the school still hasn’t bothered to phone.

I think I'll get in the bath anyway.

No doubt that’s when the phone will ring

 

 

….I did.

….It didn’t.

….Grrr!

 

.....!