It’s my birthday.
All right, it’s not, calm down. Sorry, I know that sent you scrabbling about the back of the cupboard for an uproarious card to go with the gift you obviously picked out weeks ago when you saw it and thought of me, though I’m not sure how you think you’re going to be able to post a full pint glass.
But for when it is my birthday, please, please don’t send me anything in the mail, because it would never be seen again.
I wander in out of the rain, shaking my barnet about like an outwitted sheepdog. The doors have handles but a sign tells me they’re automatic; motorisation added as afterthought, which will need to happen to me if the noises my legs make when I dare crouch are anything to go by.
I’m met immediately by a man who demands to know what I want. I can’t tell if he’s a doorman solidly and professionally making sure I’m sent in the right direction, a bouncer grimly explaining I almost certainly have the wrong shoes to get into the fightiest club in town, or one of those wretches whose souls died long ago directing you to the self-service supermarket checkout. As it turns out, he’s all three. I can be nowhere but the Post Office.