Day 8

Dear Diary,

My mind is still spinning from yesterday’s happenings. I was tempted to write ‘yesterday’s outrage’ but thought I’d let the dust settle and give everyone a second chance. Needless to say, it was one of those days I’d rather’ve been a pickle than a bus. At least a pickle has the option of choking someone, whereas all a bus can do is run them over, which is not always that easy, especially when they refuse to stand in your way.

I suppose I should start from the beginning, Dear Diary, so you’ll know what I’m going on about.

When last I wrote, which was yesterday afternoon, I’d just spied a large pink, brightly lit building lying just off the road a short way ahead, and guessed we were headed in that direction. Unfortunately, I was correct, for when he pulled up in front of it I saw it was even uglier than I’d feared. It was all horribly pink with little shiny seashells pasted all over the front. God only knows how many cockles and winkles and mussels they’d massacred to get the effect they’d wanted. A coupla trillion I’d guess. Around the front of the building were hundreds of plastic plants, off all shapes and sizes from palms to daisies, as well as cute little benches and tables interspersed right where they shouldn’t have been. I’ll tell you here and now, I was shamed to be seen there, and wished again I was back with owld Fingus Da Flatulator, before he went and blew hisself up.

To one side was a vacant lot surrounded by a pink picket fence. Each fencepost had been forced to wear a pink plastic saguaro cactus wearing a sombrero. Made me want to cry, it did. Right in the centre of the fence was a large pink sign with gold letters:

Floosie Da Smelley’s
Cheap n’ Cheerful
Junk-By-The-Tonne
Fish n’ Chips
Fried chocobars
We will Not Be Undersold

Only with sloppier handwriting. I can tell you, the minute I saw the sign I felt sick. But then I realised I hadn’t read the last line, so continued on. Right away I saw stars dancing before my eyes and wished (for the fourth or fifth time in so many minutes) I could find a cliff to roll over:

Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s
Discount Community Bus Service
And Private Hire.

I read the sign again, in the off chance my eyes’d misfired. But no such luck. I am, for the first time in my life, utterly without words. My life is over. I’m gonna do some deep breathing for a half-hour or so, cuz right now I’m too upset to think.

Now, before someone gets upset and thinks I’m snobby and have something against second-hand markets, I don’t. In fact, there’s nothing like a proper car boot or bring-and-buy to make me feel all comfy and sentimental. You see, a couple of years before owld Fingus Da Flatulator won he in a crooked card game, I was owned by a couple wot went to flea markets for a living. Some of the stuff they bought and sold was even nice and one could keep it in a back room without feeling too ashamed to live. Spadella Da Strumpet was her name, and her ‘husband’, he was called Mort Da Piffle. Nice people. Ate a bit too much fatty food and liked to bend an elbow every coupla minutes, but, hey, they treated me with respect, they did. Kept me polished and shiny and made sure my oil was clean and without great chunks of road floating about in it. Every day they used to pack me up with old furniture and sellable uglies and a couple of dogs (Mort and Smirna-Lumpy) and off we would go. Everyday it’d be to a different sale. Sometimes indoors in a large barn, in which case I’d usually hafta wait in the parking lot (unless, of course, the door was wide and there weren’t no steps for me to climb). And at the end of each day, they’d pack me up all neat and nice and we’d go home. I get all mushy and bleary-eyed just thinking of the lovely garage they’d built for me. Squeaky clean and comfy as anything, and with no cars in it to get up my snoot and make me want to bully them or run them into a ditch. There was a small and fairly ancient scooter, but she was ever so sweet and polite and, if I may say, deferential, which is a characteristic not often found in smaller vehicles. One other thing she had going for her was her sense of style and accent. Nothing like an Italian Vespa to make a bloke’s heart go boingy boing.

Unfortunately, I wish something good could be said for this ghastly pink monstrosity they’ve brought me too. The junk they sells in the market is enough to make a cow’s milk churn and sour at the same time. I’m just hoping I don’t have to carry none of it when we go to other sales.

Ah, but you are probably asking why the Community Bus sign got me so upset. I’m not really sure. Just a feeling. Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, which is what the large, well-dressed man is called when he is home, certainly seems to be a pleasant enough man, if you overlook the funny money he likes to carry around. And he’s certainly been good to me. At least so far. However, I intend to keep my eyes and ears open every single minute. And I’m telling you in advance, the first time he kicks my tyres, I’m gonna run over him and squash him like a big fat bug.

By the way, it turns out the truck and trailer wot brung me here gossip terribly where Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley are concerned. Turns out they told everyone they were married, on account of them not wanting school kids to call their daughter (who, in case you forgot, is the little girl with the horrible sausagey curls all down her back) “bastard bastard pants a’ fire.” Personally, I don’t know why that would bother her none, and I can’t even figure out why anyone would want to call her that. It’s not as though it’s clever or even very original. If you’re gonna insult someone, at least put some thought behind it. I mean, I could understand what all the fuss was all about if they called her ‘sneezy slimy pants are grimy.” At least that rhymes and has a certain je ne çe qua (whatever that means).

Anyway, it turns out the big wedding ceremony they held in the pink building was for show. Didn’t mean nothing at all. Even the vicar they’d found, The Reverend Doctor Paisley Pisser, wasn’t even a proper vicar, more like an out of work fancy dancer from the other end of the island, where everyone’s more sophisticated and open minded. Of course, everyone was so plastered during the ceremony he was the only one who realised he was reading recipes from Little Aunty Mary’s Victorian Book of Delightful Punishments, which he’d found on one of the tables in Floozie Da Smelley’s junk market. But such is life, and I’m only an old bus what’s been saved from the knacker’s yard more times than a dog’s had diarrhoea.

I still can figure out why I have such a bad feeling about this place. I mean, bad taste is one thing, but one can be tasteless and still be a nice person. I’ll hafta think about it until tomorrow. By that time I’ll know what my bedroom looks like and if they are gonna bathe me and if anyone says goodnight.

As I like to say, so endeth another day.