on Channel Four. He wondered whether anyone doing stand-up these days wasn’t ‘a comedy genius’, and daydreamed yet again about Bill Hicks riding back into town on a black stallion and driving these lager-ad auditions into the Forth to drown.
Maybe he should have just sent the kid a card and a cheque, he thought, eyeing a nearby mime with murderous intent. But what the hell, he’d bought it now, and whatever he sent wouldn’t spare him the next ordeal he had to face that day: a trip to the Post Office.
He picked up pace going down towards Princes Street, as the unpredictable crosswinds made North Bridge an inadvisable pitch for leafleting. The route was therefore comparatively free of obstacles, save for a gaggle of squawking Italian tourists staging some kind of sit-in protest at a bus-stop. Parlabane approached the St James shopping centre with a striding, let’s-get-this-over-with gait, all the while attempting to take his mind off the coming horrors with another calming fantasy involving the three female flatmates from
Friends
. This time he was disemboweling them with a broadsword, the chainsaw decapitations having grown a little tired.
It was too simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of the Tories’ Care in the Community policy. There had to be something deeper, to do with tides, ley-lines and lunar cycles, that explained why every large Post Office functioned as an urban bampot magnet, to which the deranged couldn’t help but gravitate. From the merely befuddled to the malevolently sociopathic, they journeyed entranced each day, as though hypnotically drawn by the digitized queuing system. Parlabane remembered those Les Dawson ads a few years back: ‘It’s amazing what you can pick up at the Post Office.’ Yeah. Like rabies. Or maybe anthrax.
He bought a self-assembly packing box at the stationery counter, then after ten minutes of being humiliated by an inert piece of cardboard, returned to purchase a roll of Sellotape and wrapped it noisily around the whole arrangement until Paranoid Tim was securely imprisoned. It looked bugger-all like a box, but the wee plastic bastard wasn’t going to fall out, which was the main thing.
Then he joined the queue.
There were three English crusties immediately ahead of him, each boasting an ecologically diverse range of flora and fauna in their tangled dreads. They were accompanied by the statutory skinny dog on a string, and were sharing round a jumbo plastic bottle of Tesco own-brand cider and a damp-looking dowt. The dog wasn’t offered a drag, but it looked like it had smoked a few in its time, and probably preferred untipped anyway.
Behind him there was a heavily pregnant young woman, looking tired and fanning herself with the brown envelope she was planning to post. And behind her were a couple of Morningside Ladies muttering about whichever Fringe show had been singled out for moral opprobrium (and a resultant box-office boost) this year by Conservative Councilor Moira Knox. He’d got off lightly, in other words, and the queue wasn’t even very long. The ordeal was almost over.
Except that at the post office, it’s never over till it’s over.
He caught a glimpse of a figure passing by on his right-hand side, skipping the queue and making directly for the counter. Parlabane was following the golden rule of PO survival – never look anyone in the face – but was nonetheless able to make out that the person was wearing a balaclava. His heart sank. It was the number one fashion accessory of the top-level numpties, especially in the height of summer, and this one looked hell-bent on maximum disruption.
Then from a few feet behind him he heard an explosion, and turned around to see fragments of ceiling tiles rain down upon the betweeded Morningsiders. Behind them was a man in a ski-mask holding a shotgun.
‘RIGHT, NAE CUNT MOVE – THIS IS A ROBBERY!’
Parlabane turned again and saw that the balaclavaed figure at the counter was also holding a
Maybe he should have just sent the kid a card and a cheque, he thought, eyeing a nearby mime with murderous intent. But what the hell, he’d bought it now, and whatever he sent wouldn’t spare him the next ordeal he had to face that day: a trip to the Post Office.
He picked up pace going down towards Princes Street, as the unpredictable crosswinds made North Bridge an inadvisable pitch for leafleting. The route was therefore comparatively free of obstacles, save for a gaggle of squawking Italian tourists staging some kind of sit-in protest at a bus-stop. Parlabane approached the St James shopping centre with a striding, let’s-get-this-over-with gait, all the while attempting to take his mind off the coming horrors with another calming fantasy involving the three female flatmates from
Friends
. This time he was disemboweling them with a broadsword, the chainsaw decapitations having grown a little tired.
It was too simplistic to lay the blame at the feet of the Tories’ Care in the Community policy. There had to be something deeper, to do with tides, ley-lines and lunar cycles, that explained why every large Post Office functioned as an urban bampot magnet, to which the deranged couldn’t help but gravitate. From the merely befuddled to the malevolently sociopathic, they journeyed entranced each day, as though hypnotically drawn by the digitized queuing system. Parlabane remembered those Les Dawson ads a few years back: ‘It’s amazing what you can pick up at the Post Office.’ Yeah. Like rabies. Or maybe anthrax.
He bought a self-assembly packing box at the stationery counter, then after ten minutes of being humiliated by an inert piece of cardboard, returned to purchase a roll of Sellotape and wrapped it noisily around the whole arrangement until Paranoid Tim was securely imprisoned. It looked bugger-all like a box, but the wee plastic bastard wasn’t going to fall out, which was the main thing.
Then he joined the queue.
There were three English crusties immediately ahead of him, each boasting an ecologically diverse range of flora and fauna in their tangled dreads. They were accompanied by the statutory skinny dog on a string, and were sharing round a jumbo plastic bottle of Tesco own-brand cider and a damp-looking dowt. The dog wasn’t offered a drag, but it looked like it had smoked a few in its time, and probably preferred untipped anyway.
Behind him there was a heavily pregnant young woman, looking tired and fanning herself with the brown envelope she was planning to post. And behind her were a couple of Morningside Ladies muttering about whichever Fringe show had been singled out for moral opprobrium (and a resultant box-office boost) this year by Conservative Councilor Moira Knox. He’d got off lightly, in other words, and the queue wasn’t even very long. The ordeal was almost over.
Except that at the post office, it’s never over till it’s over.
He caught a glimpse of a figure passing by on his right-hand side, skipping the queue and making directly for the counter. Parlabane was following the golden rule of PO survival – never look anyone in the face – but was nonetheless able to make out that the person was wearing a balaclava. His heart sank. It was the number one fashion accessory of the top-level numpties, especially in the height of summer, and this one looked hell-bent on maximum disruption.
Then from a few feet behind him he heard an explosion, and turned around to see fragments of ceiling tiles rain down upon the betweeded Morningsiders. Behind them was a man in a ski-mask holding a shotgun.
‘RIGHT, NAE CUNT MOVE – THIS IS A ROBBERY!’
Parlabane turned again and saw that the balaclavaed figure at the counter was also holding a
Similar Books
