Kids, eh?

I was awake by eight o’clock yesterday morning as the man from Dell had said that the new computer would be delivered any time between then and five. I was excited. Really excited. Every now and then when I heared a door being slammed I’d run to the window and look out to see if it was my delivery, like a six year old on Christmas Eve looking out for Father Christmas.

Time passed. I watched final episode of The Virgin Queen, the story of Elizabeth I from last year, the one with Mary-Anne Duff not Helen Mirren, the one that no one seemed to watch and which in the end wasn’t all that good. No sign. But it was early.

I checked the delivery details through courier website. It went ‘on deliver’ and 8:32am. So it was on the van. Why wasn’t it here? It was coming from Leyland. I checked Google Maps to see how far away that is. Forty-five minutes. OK, so perhaps he or she or whatever the gender the delivery person had stopped off for breakfast on the way. I had breakfast. Cornflakes. I waited.

I watched Lost In La Mancha, the story of how Terry Gilliam failed to make a film about Don Quixote. It’s one of those documentaries that feels too short, as though you really want to ‘enjoy’ all of the knock backs and mistakes, the arguments, the pain, the failures, but the directors aren’t in the mood to feel the voyeur in you. I ate some lunch. A sandwich. I’m beginning to panic, in that childish way I’m prone to. What if they could’t find the tower block? What if they’d already been and had decided they couldn’t gain entry? What if? What if?

Watch the publicity interview with Gilliam on the dvd in which Mark Kermode asks him some awkward questions about what the documentary says about him. The former Python takes it in good humour and notes that actually this record of his failure to make one version of the film is a great advert for when he wants to remount it and that he’s already in the process of buying back the script from the insurers who took it over when the production went belly-up. I’m starting to feel tired, possibly because I didn’t sleep well the night before. This really was like Christmas, especially since Santa still hadn’t arrived. It was two o’clock.

Watched some deleted scenes and found some of the arguments and pain and a neat sequence in which Gilliam discusses the music for the film and not so neat when he goes to see a bull fight. Eventually, I couldn’t watch any more, I’m both excited and nervous and regressed so far that I’m glad that you’re only getting to hear about it through the filter of these words. I’m not pacing, but I am genuinely wondering if they’d gotten lost or stuck in the floods even though that hadn‘t touched the north west. I’m considering the things I could have done with the day and then realised that actually, sad as it is, I might not have done that many more exciting things than this.

I telephoned the courier, it’s four o’clock. After earlier unsuccesses in attempting to navigate the push button system, this time I get through to an operator. She was irish. I was talking to Ireland. I explained to her about living in a tower block, about the security gate, about previous deliveries from other companies not getting here because the courier couldn’t work out how to get in the building. She smiled (it sounded like she smiled) and said she’d call the driver (wow, that’s good). I’m put on hold. Disconcertingly the hold music is exactly the same as the one used at a call centre I used to work at. I’m still able to sing along two years later and do. The operator returns. ‘He’ll be there in twenty-five minutes.’ ‘Fantastic!’ I say (actually more like shout). ‘Watch out for him.’ She says.

And I did. I actually went down to the road and waited for him. The van arrives and the man steps out, after looking slightly freaked by me looking through the window mouthing a brand name. ‘Dell?’ He opens the van and there under some other boxes is my box, brand name on the side. He tips it up to check that my address is on it. As I go to sign for it on his clipboard, he says, ‘The day I’ve had.’ ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Well I had a load for Morrisons and that took me an hour to drop off -- we’re supposed to be away in fifteen minutes. Then I drove out to some bloke with twelve boxes which I dropped off only to be told that he hadn’t ordered them. Bad day. I’ll be glad to get home.’ ‘Take care’ I say as I take my box from him. ‘Hope you have a better evening.’

I enter the car park of the block, in the front door, up in the lift and home. The computer is set up in about twenty minutes and then as I began to get used to this strange new operating system (‘No, I don’t want to use MSN Messenger etc.’) I start to get a pain my stomach. I haven’t have I?

I eat some chicken soup for tea. Doesn’t help. I start to get a headache. Oh for goodness sake. I’ve been so excited and nervous and stressed out about the whole thing, I’ve given myself a bellyache. I suspect its wind. What am I? Two? It’s only a new computer. I hate computers. I need a lie down.

Which I do. And inevitably, with a gap in the middle where I check my email at about midnight, I sleep like a baby - until eight o’clock this morning having experienced some weird dreams which are just too bizarre or sad or boring to even write here. But I’m back online and even if I miss my old keyboard I’m tapping away and feeling much better.

Kids, eh?