Grass Not So Green - Humorous Short Story

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Not Greener Grass:

Propelled along by the conveyor belt of human traffic, I reached into my large and unfit for purpose handbag and dug about for my oyster card.  I could feel the familiar shapes of my lipstick, mobile and purse but no amount of fumbling around could locate the dammed oyster card.  Deciding that the turnstiles where probably not the best place to stop and have a more detailed look in the said handbag - unless I wanted to incur the wrath of hundreds of miserable, tired commuters by blocking the flow – I pushed my way to the side and in a grubby corner of Oxford Street tube station, I crouched down, chastising my pashmina for flopping onto the grimy ground and rummaged through my bag.  I cursed quite loudly as I thought back to the afternoon when I had decided that tidying out my bag - a procedure usually dreaded - was still preferable to tackling my in-tray, which was depressingly full for a Friday.  Had I left the Oyster card at work?  I was about to give up when, suddenly the grey folder presented itself, poking out of one of the side compartments of the bag: which I decided there and then would have to be retired.  Grabbing it and flicking it open, I earned my reputation as a rude Londoner, forced my way back into the stream and descended underground.

Sitting on the tube I flicked off my patent high heel, to note with dismay a gapping hole in my ladderless stocking and a juicy big blister on the back of my foot.  The day was heading downhill fast.  It was February and still very dark at six thirty, so much so that it was actually hard to tell that the tube had now reached above ground beyond Finchley Road Station – would summer ever come?  A vibrating on my lap alerted me to the text which was coming in.  With an enthusiasm born of boredom and a ‘the day cannot get worse attitude’ I read the text from my boyfriend, Marc,

“What R U making for T?”

My personal rev counter immediately entered the red as I read the word “U”!  I had been working late every day that week and I had cooked and yet a certain inconsiderate person was still nagging about food on a Friday night without the thought of doing something about it himself entering his pig headed mind.  Of course because he’s an accountant who pulls the odd all-nighter he likes to perpetuate the myth that he is the most overworked person on the planet.  Jabbing at my mobile keypad, I text him back, “How about fried fresh air and a phantom steak?”

Within seconds the text jingle, which was beginning to sound like fingernails on a chalk board to me, rang out again.  With a deep intake of breath I looked at the screen; my tension immediately evaporated when I saw the text was from my cousin Tammy!

“Bully Fooked this weekend and next week; one of my staff quit, Julie has sciatica…about to have a migraine…sorry not to have rung this week.  Love Tammy.

Tammy and her husband ran a guest house and “bully fooked” was what they called being fully booked and basically rushed off their feet.  I envied Tammy; her guest house was a Tudor-style listed building in a quaint and posh town up North.  I wasn’t quite sure if it was technically ‘up North’, it was North of London at any rate and my sat nav knew the way.  My mind drifted away from the crammed tube of grey, bedraggled commuters and the brick and mortar jungle outside to the patchwork, hilly countryside where somewhere in a cosy lounge with a fire aglow, complimentary liquor chocolates awaited Tammy and Grant’s guests. Tammy’s life seemed about ten worlds from mine: all she had to do was get up, cook a few breakfasts, oversee the tidying of the bedrooms and……and…..I searched through a range of mental pictures, but that was all I could think of – she was basically free for the rest of the day to do her own thing.  What bliss when compared to my life: wrenching myself from under my duvet at the first shrill squeaks of the alarm; gulping down a microwaved instant coffee; throwing on as many layers of clothing as I could find in order to brave the Arctic wind at the train platform; awkwardly eating a digestive biscuit while holding onto the overhead