It's All in the Mind ... or Not!

I recognise that the phenomenon that I call the Repeating Genie, and about which I write often here, can be explained completely by the variety of matters that are passing through my mind at any one time, and the way this mixture promts me to notice and link certain things that are going on around me.  Understanding this, you will recall that I wrote last week about the Genie taking on new guises; this week I spotted another new one.  I have made deliveries in and to a variety of strange places and recipients over the years, including on one occasion - which I wrote about here - to a piece of street furniture: a telephone 'cabinet'.  At the beginning of last week, I delivered - for the first time, I'm sure - to a car park, more particularly the overheight car park at Heathrow Airport.  A never-to-be-repeated occurrence?  Not a bit of it!  This Tuesday saw an almost parallel occasion, when I took some security equipment to the office on the sixth floor of a municipal multi-storey car park in one of our east Midland towns.  The moral: never underestimate the power of the Genie!

Wednesday was 'words' day.  On Tuesday evening, I got around to attending to something that has niggled me for months.  I noticed that on my new hi-viz vest there were a number of long threads where the seams had been untidily stitched, and each time I saw them I remembered that I'd planned to snip them off.  Like so many things, this had been put off until the next time I saw them ... and again ... until Tuesday evening when the deed was done.  I entered the lounge on Wednesday morning, saw the hi-viz laying on the sideboard, ready alongside my lunch for my departure to the van, and a word came into my mind as straight from my father's lips.  What I had cut off that garment the previous evening were fraisles, at least that's how I've written it; I've never seen the word in print, but I remember dad talking about the old, thin jacket he would wear for work in the summer time, how the cuffs had become frayed, and would need the fraisles taken off.

Many of the old Suffolk dialect words I've only ever heard from him, and I have suspicions that centuries ago they blew across the North Sea.  I could even picture this one spelled in the original language as 'frayzel', but when I looked for anything similar in my Dutch dictionary there was no sign of it.  Another such word, one that I'm convinced did come that way, was the 'bate' that was given to horses to eat in the morning.  It was also used for the worker's breakfast.  They used to start work at 6.0 in the summer time, and the horsemen even earlier, so by 9.0 (the traditional hour for breakfast) they would be getting hungry.  Many years later, in the course of my work I discovered the Dutch expression for 'bed and breakfast': 'overnachting en ontbijt', and I felt I'd found the origin of the 'bate', since the Dutch 'ij' is pronounced like the flat 'a' of plate.

Later that morning I found myself driving along the motorway behind a van bearing the slogan "Services for your patients and their caregivers".  Here was another strange word, I thought. Carers are common, but what are 'caregivers' and how might the two differ?  My mind was once again scampering through the pages of the dictionary.  If carers and caregivers were one and the same, then this slogan was certainly correct, however strange it might seem, because that's what carers do: they give care.  Then I went on to think about people taking care of others, and how that, too, meant the same thing rather than the opposite: taking care as opposed to giving care, and yet meaning the same.  And what about caretakers?  Yes, I suppose they take care - or give care - in the same way, but more usually of buildings than people.  Perhaps it was as well for my sanity that it was about then that I reached my destination.

This afternoon really took the biscuit.  It was a reminder of another party to the whole courier scenario.  We've got the sender, and the receiver, who is usually the sender's customer, or sometimes the sender's customer's customer.  And then there are those occasions when we deliver directly from the sender's supplier to his customer.  Rarely, if ever, do we have to consider the sender's customer's host.  It was coming up to 5.30, and I had a pallet of printed matter to get rid of before people went home for the weekend.  The address I had was clear, <name of consignee> Unit 3 <streetname>. Unfortunately, there were two separate Unit 3s in that street and which one came first?  Yep, the wrong 'un.  I'm not saying there was a connection, but by the time I found the right place, it looked very shut up.

But hey, there's a board outside with the right name on.  At least that confirms it's the right place, and it's one of those flappy signs that stand outside on the pavement ...  and the reception light is on ... and the door's ajar!  Only it wasn't quite so my-lucky-day as it seemed.  I walked into reception to see whether they had a fork truck they could get out and use. There was a sign on the desk and a bell push.  All off a sudden, "WAAAIIIILLLL!"  The alarm was sounding.  I hesitated, looked around, listened ... no sound except that din outside.  The Marie Celeste came to mind: there was no one around at all.  After a minute or so, I went outside - no other door seemed remotely occupied.  There was a phone no. above the door, so I rang it, got the predictable recording about 'leave a message and we'll get back to you', so I did, although it was obvious what was happening.

I'd just got through to my office to report the situation when the police car turned up.  I told the controller I'd ring him back, and started explaining to the Sergeant what was going on, while her colleague looked around. Meanwhile another police car arrived, with two more officers, followed closely by two separate vehicles with the keyholders of the premises. Eventually the place was secured, the police satisfied, and then I piped up about my load of printed matter.  The place was opened up again, and the two men helped me to unload the boxes.  Then one of them exploded, "They're not even for us!  Why couldn't he have told us he was expecting something?"  I suggested that perhaps that was why the door had been left open ... .  This only made things worse.  "He hasn't been near the place all day," came the reply (indicating that it was this man's own colleague whose oversight had caused the problem).  "He runs his business in a room that he rents from us.  He's only here three days a week, and expects us to run around behind him for the rest of the time!"

So memo for the future ... beware the 4th party!