Wrong Patch

Indulge me in writing the second entry in as many days but I have another short tale to tell. The kind that could only happen to me. You remember some years ago when a man walked uninvited into my house and asked me if I was selling any ‘ciggies’? Well this is in that category, that field of the downright batshit bizarre, though it doesn’t quite top it.

It is dark when I get out of work at this time of year. Without wishing to depress you too much just five days on from a crushing Tory victory at the General Election, it is dark when I leave for work in the morning also. Like many people who work nine to five (8.30 to 4.30 but who’s clock watching?) I see hardly any daylight during the winter months. This lack of daylight is central to the farce which unfolded this evening.

Emma works until 5.00pm. It is about a 10-minute walk from her place of work to mine, where we park the car. We do this because, when I remember to renew my blue badge, it is free to do so.. So tonight I’d asked her to pop to Gregg’s for some sausage rolls. Are you even from St Helens if you don’t have pastry products for your tea once in a while? As a consequence of the Gregg’s stop I was a little earlier getting to the car than Emma. It was only a few minutes but long enough to convince me that I needed something to pass the time.

Like anyone else these days social media on my phone is the go-to method of killing any waiting time. I was idly scrolling through Twitter, pondering whether the appointment of Clare Balding as RFL President will make any more difference to the sport of rugby league than the appointment of her predecessor Tony Adams did. I started tapping out a comment on the BBC’s linked tweet to the story when I heard the rear door on the passenger side of the car being opened. I didn’t even look up from my phone at first. I assumed it was Emma, which on reflection is odd because she never sits in the back of the car. At the time though I just thought it was possible that she had decided she couldn’t be arsed to move my wheelchair to the boot but that was always a long shot. It was not Emma.

I finally turned my head to look at the recently opened door and, staggeringly, found myself confronted with a man clambering on to the back seat. Bold as brass he just climbed in like it was the most routine thing in the world. I hadn’t felt this violated since my last stay in hotel NHS. There was a surreal moment where we both paused to just look at each other before he eventually climbed back out from whence he came and said, in a thick scouse accent;

“Ah....sorry mate. Wrong patch.”

Wrong patch? Who says that? And then it hit me. He must have thought I was a drug dealer. And now he was apologising in the way you might apologise for burping in a lift.

Without wanting to stereotype he had the look of an addict. Confused expression, a skinny physique that made Zammo from Grange Hill look like Anthony Joshua, and several gaps where his teeth used to be. It was a moment Victor Meldrew would certainly not have believed. To his credit he soon scarpered, apologising again as he walked up the hill and out on to the street. I didn’t have time to say anything as he left, momentarily dumbfounded that the local druggies now mistake me for their top supplier. Do Liverpool drug dealers really hang around outside Universities in red Vauxhall Astras? Or was he just so spaced out that the colour and model of my car were an irrelevance? Will any parked car suffice for an addict if it has someone sat in it idly scrolling through Twitter on his phone? It would appear so.

My car is due for a service this week. I might ask them if they can give it a luminous spray to make it absolutely clear to the ne-er do-wells among us that I’m not the man they’re looking for.