ANGELA’S FIRST DAY
(774 Words)
Angela got up early on her first day as the P.A. of the
managing director of a large company in the near by city
of Norwich. She spent a good hour on
her appearance, washing her hair, carefully applying her make up
and choosing her clothes for the day. She felt it very important
for her to make a good impression on her new boss. She had been
told by her friends who already worked for this up and coming
international company that her boss was a stickler for having
things ‘just so’. As she was due to start work at
nine o’clock she thought that it wisest to
arrive there a little early rather than late. As the companies
offices were about an hour’s drive from her home in Acle, she
decide to leave at half seven, allowing half an hour for any
unforeseen circumstances.
On the dot of 7.30 she backed her Ford Fiesta out of the
garage. The weather forecast for the day had sounded promising on
last night’s news, but now it looked heavy and overcast. So much
for the sun they said we would have, she thought.
As she drove she sang along with the radio, the latest
Robbie Williams hit, humming the bits where she didn’t know the
words. She had been driving for about half an hour when the skies
opened and the rain started to fall like Noah should be
rebuilding his Ark.
Then she saw, little further down Yarmouth
Road a tailback of traffic, and in the distance she
could see a road accident. ‘Just as well I know the roads around
here”, she thought, “I can cut off just here and go down
Church Lane and get back on the road a good
way past this.’ Angela turned right and had gone no more than 200
yards than she felt the car give a little swerve; she immediately
applied the brakes and came to a stop. Angela knew from the feel
of the car that she had a puncture in the off side rear
tyre.
Swearing softly to herself she picked up her mobile phone
and dialled the A.A., but all she got was a continuous buzzing
sound. Then she remembered that for some reason or other her
phone never did work in the car, so finding one or two more
choice words she got out of the car to phone. As she opened the
door she caught her hand on the door and dropped the phone into a
large puddle just outside her door, a puddle she now found
herself standing in. By this time the dictionary had run out of
words that she might have found suitable for the situation,
‘Nothing else for it’ she thought, ‘I’ll have to change the
wheel.’
Walking to the rear of the car she opened the boot to get
the spare wheel. As she bent she failed to see the large
semi-trailer coming down to road towards her and as it hit the
large puddle the tidal wave that followed drenched poor Angela,
forcing her to drop the spare wheel, badly laddering her tights
on its way down.
It was at this stage Angela started collating data for a
new dictionary of swear words and had just about completed the
work by the time she had changed the wheel some thirty minutes
later.
Angela got back into the car after fishing around in the
puddle for her phone, which she immediately threw out again as
she remembered that its insurance had run out the day before.
Angela started her car (yes, it did start) and continued on her
way to work. Approximately two hours after leaving home Angela
pulled into her new company’s car park, where she learnt, they
had just had installed a coin machine for parking, and that she
had no change in her purse. Being able to carry out a 52-point
turn in such a small turning area is to be applauded, especially
when one complets a new dictionary whilst doing so.
Angela drove to
a nearby newsagents to purchase a newspaper in order to get the
necessary change to enter the car park, only to find that they
were commencing road works outside the shop she had intended
using, and she was unable to park any closer than 30 yards away
and it was still raining hard. ‘Well,’ thought Angela ‘if I’m
going to be late I may as well be later,’ and drove to another
shop half a mile away. As she pulled up outside the shop she
noticed that they were still displaying Sunday’s newspapers on
Monday, or were they?
