Day 97

Dear Diary,

“Hi diddle diddle dee, a hero’s life for me,” which is something new for my curriculum vitae in the way of career choices, but probably won’t do nothing for me when it comes to getting better seat in restaurants. ‘Course, that’s more of a bus issue than a hero issue, on account of most restaurants have a prejudice against us buses, even when we’re a classic Daimler Burlington CVD6 and not a common as mud Ford Transit. But that’s the way it is and I don’t imagine the European Court of Human Rights is gonna take up our cause, at least not until them wot decides such things takes the “human” outta the equation for being discriminatory and puts in “bus”, which ain’t. I thought I’d mention this so’s you’d know I’m up on current legal and legislative affairs and not just some dumb hunk of steel with beautiful shiny bodywork wot drives chicks crazy. And not only chicks but the flip side o’the old chromosome divide as well, as illustrated by Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator, wot couldn’a get enough of me until he discovered he couldn’a get enough of money even more, and to prove it he done the dirty with Howard Donald Da Fardle and a whole suitcase full of banknotes. Now Ol’ Finian Da Fabricator wasn’t all that bad to look at, not if’n you kept your eyes closed, but Howard Donald Da Fardle? Let’s just say I likes jelly donuts just fine, providing they takes a bath once every other month or so, but when you combines them with a walrus and a octopus and a bucket of puss, your old passion pheromones tend to shut down. At least in my opinion, but I’m just a bus, ain’t I, and don’t got a feeling for wot turns human being into smouldering rods o’fire. Where was I?

Oh, yes, I was all excited about being called a hero and everybody was telling me they’d’a all been dead and ate by the fishies if’n if weren’t for my decisive life-saving abilities and quick thinking. Personally, I prefer to think my good looks and intelligence had something to do with it as well, but I guess one should accept the compliments one gets and not worry about them wot one doesn’t, if you know wot I mean.

‘Course, I’m getting ahead of myself in the telling of wot happened department, and you gotta forgive me for that on account of I was overcome by an attack of celebrating myself and had to get it outta my system.

Last thing yesterday when I put away my pencil and notebook, we was all becalmed at sea and safe as houses after we was no longer in danger of drowning like rats in a toilet. The biddies was breaking out their free lunches and chattering away like a whole cage of budgerigars, and up front in the driver’s seat, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was giving herself one of them hot wax jobs humans are partial to when their hormones get the better of them. It’s an easier life for us buses, especially us classic ones, on account of we’re naturally better looking and sexy and don’t have to shave or yank off unsightly bits on account of we don’t got none cluttering up our equipment. Anyway, The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was doing her best with wot she’s got, which is not exactly something you’d throw outta the bed at the moment. ‘Course, she never knows when Ol’ Misther Mendl Paws is gonna come knocking at her door, after which it’s all down hill ‘til she croaks and expires. You only gotta look at the biddies to know wot I’m saying is true. However, to be fair, I gotta admit that Ol’ Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien, wot used to work late night shifts at the Bump ‘n’ Grind Lap-o-Matic before the flood washed it out to sea and over to Argentina where she can’t get no work permit, is a hot A-Number One firecracker wot is a testament to the powers of them collagen injections and wot they calls cosmetic enhancement. You’d never think to look at her that she’s about the same age as Missus Milly Da Fardle, and in fact is one of her twin sisters. Maybelline Dorcus O’Brien always was the lucky one when it came to looks and men and in knowing how to get the best outta dirty stuff, and wot I was gonna say is she is proof positive biddies don’t hafta be biddies, not if they fight hard enough against it. Sorry, but I got lost again and can’t remember where I was.

Oh, yes, I was talking about how The Widow Fartie Da Whistle was giving herself one of them special Brazilian wax jobs and after that, when she were smoother’n a bowl of blancmange, she squirted herself all over with some of that fake tan. ‘Course, it were my personal opinion that the particular orange colour she was partial to weren’t as sexy as a nice spray-painted shade of blue so she’d match the sky and the sea, but she said it was wot she was after, on account of it showed off her sparkly black and amber eyes and pearly white dentures to their best advantage. And you can’t argue with a women when it comes to personal things like their looks, that is without hurting their feelings, so I didn’t say nothing and kept my trap shut.

Anyways, there we was, me basking in the sun and swimming in gentle figure eights and The Widow Fartie Da Whistle hotting herself up like one o’them hotsy-totsy slapper girls you sees in them fancy fashionable magazines and hoping to meet someone special in the event we ever run into another human being again, and there was the biddies doing wot they does best, criticising folks wot’s not there to defend themselves. And right in the middle of all this activity, which, in case you hadn’t already guessed, was when I was writing down my last bunch of thoughts to you, Dear Diary, I happened to look up and spied that old pink and gold turbo jet ski doing nothing much of anything on top of the waves. I say doing nothing much, on account of it were sorta going round and round in tight nervous circles and not actually progressing anyway, not like a jet ski likes to do under ordinary circumstances. And who do you think was on board but Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley and their fat pink rabbit, Boris, who must’a snuck aboard when I wasn’t looking on account of he sure weren’t there before. Who knows? Maybe he’d been sleeping in Misther Patchouli Da Fanny’s breast pocket or in Ol’ Floozie’s king-sized pink and gold leatherette pretend designer handbag and finally came up for air. Or perhaps he was aimlessly floating in the sea after the flood washed away his pink and gold hutch, or maybe he went swimming for the hell of it and he was unlucky enough that the only folks he runned into was the ones he’d runned away from. Anyway, Ol’ Boris and the other two was sleeping to beat the band and all of them was pinker’n more sun-fried than a potato wot’s stuck to the bottom of the pan. All except Boris, but he’s got a lovely thick protective coat of fur plus two winter jackets he’d brought along just in case he ended up in the Antarctic and need ‘em. Rabbit is like that. Far-sighted. Except for the ones wot get ate. But that’s not wot I was talking about, was I? Wot I was talking about was that I spied Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley all unconscious on their jet ski, and from the look of things I’d say the steering handlebars’d jammed on left, cuz like I said before, they was going round in circles and looked like they’d continue doing it til they’d runned outta fuel. And one look at poor Ol’ Misther Patchouli Da Fanny and Floozie Da Smelley told me they’d be baked to death in a minute if’n someone didn’t do something about it. And since I was the only one wot wasn’t doing anything special at the time, I’m guessing someone up above selected me for the job.

Wouldn’t you know it, Dear Diary, but I’ve just dropped my pencil in the water and it doesn’t want to write until I tell it I’m sorry. I’m terrible sorry about this, on account of I was gonna give you a treat and actually spin you one whole adventure without running out of time. Well, like they says, life is shit and then you dies. You’ll just hafta wait until my pencil recovers and’s in a better mood. When he is, I’ll wake you up from whatever drug you been snorting and say, so endeth my pencil’s general strike and we can get going again so you’ll hear about wot a hero I am.