Day 82

Dear Diary,

As I said a while back, good things is sometimes too good to last. I don’t rightly know why this is, but whoever thought up the idea in the first place sure ought’a be took back behind the barn for a good hiding with a steel girder. In my opinion once the good times starts they gotta get stuck on forward for forever and a day. At least as far as I’m concerned. ‘Course, I must admit that with me being a bus and all, I’m not exactly programmed to go through a lot of emotional turmoil when things don’t go my way, but that don’t mean I don’t get a sore rotor when I’m throwed for a loop. In fact, I’ve been knowed from time to time to stall and refuse to start up again, not until the driver, usually Misther Patchouli Da Fanny, who’s stripped my gears more times then a dog’s humped his leg, apologises profusely and changes my sparkplugs and gives my bodywork a real good hand-waxing. I don’t need to tell you it works every time. Unfortunately, humans is a whole lot dumber than us buses, especially us classic Daimlers (I can’t say the same for Ford Transits, wot weren’t built with a brain at all) and so they are slower’n us when it comes to setting bad situations right.

But back to wot I was saying about good times being forever headed into the shit bucket. Yesterday were a primo supreme example of this. You’ll recall how the storm cleared away ‘PRESTO BINGO’ as though it’d never been there endangering us in the first place, and how we was suddenly floating on the sea wot were as blue as a robin’s egg and under a sky wot were even bluer’n that. The sun were shining to beat the band and smiling down upon us and the seabirds was swooping and soaring and the porpoises was dancing and splashing with the whales and even the sharks had these great big grins on their faces and was taking the pledge not to eat no more fishies or little children, not unless they swimmed right into their mouths and said, real polite, “please, Misther Shark, please oh please eat me up down to the last crumb on account of that is wot I want more’n anything else in the world, and if’n you don’t do it my life’ll be a waste and waste is a sin.”

Well, that’s generally wot was going on, and I must say I was happy as a clam wots not yet been caught and put in a bowl of chowder, and there was Ol’ Widow Fartie Da Whistle lying out on top of me, all stretched out on a towel and wearing a bikini wot wasn’t practically there at all. And her eyes was closed and she were catching as many rays as she could, on account of wot with her having lived on the island most’a her life she’d hardly ever experienced any of them rays shining down on her body like this since the day she was born. And I must admit she were browning up sweeter’n a chocolate drop and if’n I’d’a been born a man with a wanger and not a classic Daimler CVD6 bus with a handcrafted Burlington 33-seat coach I’d a gobbled her up faster’n one of them sharks’d swallow a little girl after’n she’s gave him permission! But anyway, being that I am wot I am and pretty happy about it, I just floated about on the sea and enjoyed the look of her.

And that’s where I was when the pear-shaping shit come upon us. The first thing wot happened was I suddenly felt this a’tugging coming from my back end, and I looked around, thinking maybe I’d run aground on one of them coral reefs, when wot should meet my eyes but a whole string of two hundert pink portable toilets masquerading as holiday hotel vacation cottages, all tied to me with a rope and parading single-file like they was in a parade. ‘Course, right then and there I could feel myself getting pretty steamed up, on account of portable toilets is not the smartest buttons in the box, not even if they’re pretending to be holiday homes with little picket fences surrounding each one, complete with barbeques and fat tourons with loud Bermuda shorts snoring away to beat the band, and no way did they have the intelligence to think up such a scheme. And then of course, it dawned on me. They was as innocent as the day is long (even if it comes naturally and they’ve got no control over their actions). It had to’ve been sneaky Ol’ Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelly, taking advantage of the storm and all the hurly-burly, to launch their latest moneymaking scheme. Namely The Smelley-Fanny World Adventure Cruise Company! And you’d better believe, there they was, way back there on the two hunderth and last pink portable toilet, sitting out on their veranda and counting their money and looking mighty smug about the whole thing. And the thing was, for once in their lives, it were real genuine banknotes they was stashing away in their luggage and not the usual pretend fake Italian Lira wot they prints up in the lopsided pink flatpack building, on account of the flood’d carried away the pink flatpack building and their printing press and even Floozie Da Smelley’s Junk-By-The-Tonne-Junkerama.

‘Course, I did feel bad about them losing their lopsided pink flatpack building and everything else, including their big pink marshmallow fake palace house and printing press, but that weren’t no excuse for them tagging along behind me like two hundert hitchhikers wot’s cadging a ride for nothing. In fact, I was just about to turn around and tell ‘em to unhitch themselves from my tailpipe, when the next phase up ‘up shit creek without a paddle’ came knocking at my door without asking permission to come in. And no, I’m not gonna tell you what it was, at least not ‘till I’ve swung around and swum back to read the riot act to Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley for taking advantage of me without offering to give me a cut of the profits. I will give you a hint, however, and her name is Missus Milly Da Fardle, bless her leaky little nappy.

Anyways, I’m putting away my pencil so’s I can take care of things, but don’t you worry, on account of I won’t leave you in the lurch. As I’m always saying, so endeth this page, Dear Diary, but I’ll see you again before you can thank God I’ve forgot all about you and’ve lost my pencil.