All I did at 10.15 was pull on a pair of jeans, pick up my wallet and glasses and phone and head out to the car. I couldn’t wash my hair and I was a little nervous about the whole thing anyway. The time had come, time to get it sorted, to get is fixed up and over with. I was pleased and, of course, nervous all at the same time.
I started to back out, but the steering was almost too heavy to turn the steering wheel. I jumped out of the car and ran around checking the tyres, the left front one was flat.
“Damn!” I haven’t had a flat tyre for years and then I only think I have ever had one. Why today, I asked myself? “Bloody hell.
Okay, get it together, this tyre isn’t going to change itself.
I chocked the wheels, I got the jack and wheel brace from the back of the car, I undid the wheel nuts then I tried to get the spare wheel. It is under the back of the car. I could see it, but I just couldn’t work out how to undo the frame that was holding it in. No, I couldn’t work it out. I tried and tried, but it was no good. Time was ticking away and I was getting nowhere. Bugger it! I had to leave. Any other appointment and I may have been tempted to cancel, but not today.
I had to catch a taxi. I had no money in my wallet, I knew that. I had a few dollars but certainly not enough for a taxi. It was 10.40 by this stage. I ran to the NAB ATM in Smith Street, pound pound pound, went my feet on the footpath. I caught a taxi at 10.50. The taxi driver knew where to go, he didn’t need me to direct him.
I twitched in the back, I was nervous. He had the heater cranked. I sweated from the running and he had the child locks on the rear windows, so I couldn’t open mine. I hate being late for an appointment, unless of course if is just a friend’s for dinner, then I don’t really care.
I got to the doctor at 11.15. I apologised for being late and I stared to explain, but the receptionist held up her hands and said she never wore a watch. I guess it was that kind of place.
The waiting room was full of old people with bandages of varying sizes. The old man opposite me seemed to have a hole in his nose, which seemed to be black and red, it was packed with cotton wool with tape holding it in. Another man had a patch on his forehead, as big as his hand. Another man seemed to know a woman who arrived after me. They talked like old friends. Did they know each other from this waiting room, I wondered? She asked him how he was and he told her that one of his spots had come back as a melanoma. The doctor told him that it probably wouldn’t kill him, however. “I probably have a better chance of being killed by a Bell Street bus.” She was having her stitches out. I was staring at decrepitude, possibly my future, who knows these things. I got a shiver.
The nurse soon came and collected me. She asked me how I was. I said seriously, “Oh, I think it may be infected, it oozed blood and stuff yesterday.”
“Oh well, better out than in,” she replied bluntly.
Well, yes I thought to myself.
She ripped off the plaster. She cut out the stitches.
“Are you allergic to Bettadine,” she asked?
“I’m not allergic to anything,” I replied.
She painted some antiseptic on the wound.
The doctor came in. He said it looked good.
A basil cell carcinoma that's what my tests came back as. They got all of it, apparently, and it is all over. It isn’t the type to spread. It is most likely from sun damage sustained as a child on the beach. More than likely I will get another one.
I thanked the doctor. “Thank you for everything you have done,” I said. “I hope I never see you again.”
He laughed.
I turned toward the door. “I mean that in the nicest possible way,” I added. The lovely nurse laughed.
Time to go home. How to go? Surely, I don't need to catch a taxi? The nice medical receptionist had no idea about public transport. She offered to call me a taxi.
"No, that's okay. I quite like public transport," I said. "Even if I tend to drive every where." That isn't, actually, true and I wasn't sure why I said it, camaraderie, I suspect.
"There is a bus that goes to Northland," she offered.
"Okay, thanks," I said. I wasn't in a rush, I'd work it out.
I headed out the door. Should I walk back to Ivanhoe? Is there an Ivanhoe station? Oh, don't be ridiculous, I thought. I walked to the bus stop on Bell Street. I waited for the bus, at 11.40am. The 903, or the 513, the schedule said. I could catch the bus to Nicholson Street and catch the 96, I first wondered. I perused the map. Bell Street crosses Plenty Road and there is the 86 tram. Ah the 86 tram. Oh, that couldn't be easier. No matter where I go, the 86 tram will always take me home.
I thought, initially, that I wanted the 903, but then I saw that it went up Murray Road. Then I saw I wanted the 513, which went along Bell Street. Oh come on, come on. I had my phone in my hand and I wondered who I could text to complain about the lateness of the bus. Who could I text with? Then I caught myself and laughed. Put your phone away, you don't need to tell anybody anything. It was a sunny day, I put my phone away and enjoyed the sun on my face, the irony was not lost on me.
The 903 turned up. I stepped on the bus like a brainless commuter, I’m not, really, sure why? Just stupidity really. Is it a look at me moment? Is it a lack of faith in my own judgement? Is it boredom? I’m not really sure. I ask the driver if he went to Plenty Road?
"If you want to go via Northland," he said. He was handsome, which didn’t hurt, and he had a sibilance. He pronounced north as though it was spelt with an f, it was adorable.
"Do I need the 503?"
"The 513."
"Do you know how long that will be?"
He laughed, as though I was asking how long is a piece of string. He was adorable. I got off. The doors closed with a hiss.
The 513 came not long after. I didn’t really know where Plenty Road was, even if I had some idea. I asked the driver. “Not far,” he said. When Plenty Road was the next stop, half of the bus told me it was my stop. (Like a yellow ribbon and an Oak Tree) I bought a cappuccino muffin and walked down Plenty Road in the sun. There is something lovely about walking along in the morning sun. But, the tram soon came and I caught the 86 and I was home in no time.
I walked Buddy to the Exhibition Gardens to meet Sam, who'd had a job interview and had just finished lunch with Charlie.
I still had to get the tyre fixed, at the very least changed, when I got home. I had to work out how to get the tyre out of its cradle underneath the back of the car. Then change it. And then, presumably, get it repaired, before I got another flat tyre, which was unlikely as my last flat tyre was in the 1980s, but one doesn't want to tempt these things when one doesn't have a spare tyre. What do they call that, Murphy's Law?
I called Mario my mechanic to ask him how to release the spare. He walked me through it, but I misunderstood what he was saying. But I back tracked and worked it out on my own after we hung up the phone. I googled the jacking points of the car, just to be safe.
I got the tyre changed in no time, once I was able to extract the spare from the car. Sam helped.
I got up from the side of the car when I was finished and smashed my face into the car’s revision mirror, breaking the glasses I was wearing.
“Ah, fuck it!” I picked up the broken frames and broke them into further pieces in a rage. Sam gave me a “look.”
I needed to keep the momentum going, I needed to take this tyre to be repaired.
I headed to Brunswick. My car, of course, has difficult wheels that don’t have centre caps, and not all tyre repair shops are equipped to work on them, apparently, they need an adaptor for them.
As I approached Sydney Road, a woman in a white 4WD came up in the left hand lane, which runs out, she put her blinker on and expected to just move into my lane, when I was right next to her. She wasn’t in front of me, I wasn’t in front of her, I was right next to her and I wouldn’t let her in. She was none too happy. She was mouthing what I can only assume were obscenities at me, when I held my hands in the air as if to say, What are you doing? Then she was giving me the bird, when I laughed at her. A nice middle class woman, who didn’t like me laughing at her contorting her face and looking ridiculous. I wish I’d picked up my phone and started taking pictures of her. I didn’t give in. I was right next to her, she essentially wanted to occupy the space I was occupying. What do these people think? Her lane ran out and she had nowhere to go. She was still gesticulating as I accelerated in front of her.
The nice tyre man looked at my tyre. He told me the tyre was technically unroadworthy, and that I was, in all reality, wasting my money repairing it. I was surprised, my tyres weren’t that Old, I told him. I told him he fitted the tyres. He looked them up. They were fitted 4 years ago and I had done nearly 20,000 k’s almost exactly.
They were unroadworthy because they had worn unevenly, they had worn on the inside. My wheel balance clearly hadn’t been correct.
So, I needed new tyres. I could order the cheaper brand that would wear better, but they wouldn’t grip the road as well, or I could spend $50 more per tyre and they would grip the road better, but wouldn’t wear as well.
I ordered 2 new Michelin tyres, the more expensive tyre that grip the road better, for which I had to wait 2 hours to be fitted.
I had 2 hours to fill in. Two hours, sigh.
I found a coffee shop in Sydney Road and ordered a coffee and a pie. It was really busy, there were people coming in all the time. I got a seat in the window initially, but it was inline with the door, which didn’t close properly, and eventually the cold got too much even for me. So I moved to a table of four.
People were standing around waiting for take away the whole time.
I moved to a table and promptly broke my second pair of glasses for the day as I sat down and opened the newspaper with my 2nd coffee.
A cute cop came in in his full cop gear, round face, short hair, gun in his holster. He too waited for some take away coffees. When I looked up, he was facing me and I could see the clear outline of his cock in his blue police pants. When I looked up to his face he was looking directly at me. I wondered if I could get arrested for staring at a coppers willy? I wondered if there was any laws against it? Of course, I couldn’t help sneaking another look at him, again he seemed to see me when I did. I looked back at my newspaper and I didn’t look at him again. (I didn't want to get arrested)
Eventually, the call came, the car was ready at 4pm.
Apparently, my toe in, or my toe out, or some such thing were set wrong. The nice tyre guy gave me some instructions to give to Mario the mechanic to get something fixed with my steering rack so the nice tyre man can fix my wheel alignment properly.
I collected my car and drove home. The day was over. I puffed my pillow and lay back on the couch. What a day?
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